How Roman Baths worked
Description
Rom and Romola explain that the baths were used as a place to swim and pray to the goddess Minerva, who the Romans believed had healing qualities. The clip shows the remains of the caldarium, a very hot bath, the tepidarium, a warm bath, and the frigidarium, a freezing cold bath. It also explains how the Romans used a hypocaust, an underground heating system, to ensure they always had hot water.
Classroom Ideas
As students watch the clip, they could note down the key terms used to describe how the baths work. Students could discuss these at the end and write a definition for each.
Students could use construction toys to build a model of a Roman bath house, using information from the clip and supplementing it with images from books and webpages. Students could label the caldarium, tepidarium and frigidarium (hot, warm and cold baths). Students could equip their model with a hypocaust too, placing a floor over stacks of plastic bricks to create a cavity. The hotter the bath, the larger the hot-air cavity beneath its floor.
Romans
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