Midreshet Ben-Gurion (), also known as Midreshet Sde Boker, is a

community settlement A community settlement (, ''Yishuv Kehilati'') is a type of town or village in Israel and in the West Bank. In an ordinary town, anyone may buy property, but in a community settlement, the village's residents are organized in a cooperative an ...

and an educational center in southern

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

. Located in the

Negev The Negev ( ; ) or Naqab (), is a desert and semidesert region of southern Israel. The region's largest city and administrative capital is Beersheba (pop. ), in the north. At its southern end is the Gulf of Aqaba and the resort town, resort city ...

next to kibbutz

Sde Boker Sde Boker () is a kibbutz in the Negev desert of southern Israel. Best known as the retirement home of Israel's first Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, it falls under the jurisdiction of Ramat HaNegev Regional Council. In it had a population of . ...

, it falls under the jurisdiction of

Ramat HaNegev Regional Council Ramat HaNegev Regional Council () is a regional council in the Negev desert in Israel. With around 8,000 residents spread across 20 villages, the council is geographically the largest in Israel, covering more than 20% of Israel's landmass. The ...

. In it had a population of .

History

The construction of a field school began in 1962, inspired by

David Ben-Gurion David Ben-Gurion ( ; ; born David Grün; 16 October 1886 – 1 December 1973) was the primary List of national founders, national founder and first Prime Minister of Israel, prime minister of the State of Israel. As head of the Jewish Agency ...

's vision of developing a thriving

Jew Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, religion, and community are highly inte ...

ish culture in the arid Negev. Ben Gurion envisioned the place to be a "Hebrew Oxford of the Negev". The

Jacob Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research The Jacob Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research (BIDR) constitute one of the academic faculties of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU), and are located on BGU's Sede Boqer Campus in Midreshet Ben-Gurion in the heart of the Negev Desert i ...

, affiliated with

Ben-Gurion University of the Negev Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) (, ''Universitat Ben-Guriyon baNegev'') is a public university, public research university in Beersheba, Israel. Named after Israeli List of national founders, national founder David Ben-Gurion, the unive ...

, the Ben Gurion Heritage Institute, and a

high school A secondary school, high school, or senior school, is an institution that provides secondary education. Some secondary schools provide both ''lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper secondary education'' (ages 14 to 18), i.e., ...

(with a boarding school) emphasizing environmental studies, are now located there. Ben-Gurion and his wife Paula Ben-Gurion are buried nearby in the

Ben-Gurion Tomb National Park Ben-Gurion Tomb National Park is a national park located next to the Midreshet Ben-Gurion. The garden was established around the grave plot where the first Prime Minister of the State of Israel David Ben-Gurion and his wife Paula were buried. The ...

on a cliff overlooking the Zin valley.

Solar energy research

The Jacob Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research has developed a

solar energy Solar energy is the radiant energy from the Sun's sunlight, light and heat, which can be harnessed using a range of technologies such as solar electricity, solar thermal energy (including solar water heating) and solar architecture. It is a ...

research program focusing on how extremes of heat and cold in the desert can be mitigated through efficient storage of heat during the day for release at night. An

adobe Adobe (from arabic: الطوب Attub ; ) is a building material made from earth and organic materials. is Spanish for mudbrick. In some English-speaking regions of Spanish heritage, such as the Southwestern United States, the term is use ...

house was built with rational fenestration, small windows in the northern side and heat collecting concrete prisms in the windows of the south facing wall. The prisms are situated in the rooms. They absorb heat during the day and can be rotated to allow the heat to discharge into the rooms at night. The "chimney" is part of an evaporative cooling system that maintains the temperature of the house during the day at bearable levels. A double skin

greenhouse A greenhouse is a structure that is designed to regulate the temperature and humidity of the environment inside. There are different types of greenhouses, but they all have large areas covered with transparent materials that let sunlight pass an ...

uses

copper Copper is a chemical element; it has symbol Cu (from Latin ) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkish-orang ...

sulfate The sulfate or sulphate ion is a polyatomic anion with the empirical formula . Salts, acid derivatives, and peroxides of sulfate are widely used in industry. Sulfates occur widely in everyday life. Sulfates are salts of sulfuric acid and many ...

solution as a heat screen during the day. The liquid is pumped between the two skins, protects the interior from

ultraviolet Ultraviolet radiation, also known as simply UV, is electromagnetic radiation of wavelengths of 10–400 nanometers, shorter than that of visible light, but longer than X-rays. UV radiation is present in sunlight and constitutes about 10% of ...

rays and collects heat. At night the liquid is recirculated returning the heat to the greenhouse.

David Faiman David Faiman (; born 1944 in the United Kingdom) is a British and Israeli physicist. Background Faiman was educated at Willesden County Grammar School and the University of London, and received his Ph.D from the University of Illinois in 1969. ...

of the Solar Center has made advancements in the realm of concentrator photovoltaics CPV. Faiman has produced a CPV unit capable of producing energy at a factor of up to a thousand more than conventional units.

Agricultural and biotechnology research

Researchers at Midreshet Ben-Gurion have made breakthroughs in agriculture and biotechnology relevant to

drylands Drylands are defined by a scarcity of water. Drylands are zones where precipitation is balanced by evaporation from surfaces and by transpiration by plants (evapotranspiration). The United Nations Environment Program defines drylands as tropical ...

and sustainable agriculture. The STRS1 and STRS2 genes, master controller genes in stress responses, discovered by Dr. Simon Barak and his students in 2006, helped to elucidate some of the more important genes involved with abiotic stress responses. Avigad Vonshak, Director of the Institutes from 2002 to 2010, made headlines for his discovery, together with Prof. Sammy Boussiba (also of the institutes) of

astaxanthin Astaxanthin is a keto- carotenoid within a group of chemical compounds known as carotenoids or terpenes. Astaxanthin is a metabolite of zeaxanthin and canthaxanthin, containing both hydroxyl and ketone functional groups. It is a lipid-solu ...

accumulation in green algae.Astaxanthin Accumulation in the Green Alga Haematococcus pluvialis
/ref> Astaxanthin is an extremely valuable poly-unsaturated fatty acid ( PUFA) which is valued for its use as a pigment, nutritional value, and possible use in bio-diesel.

Notable residents

* Gannit Ankori

Gallery

File:Midreshet Ben-Gurion3.JPG File:Grave of David Ben Gurion and Paula Munweis in Sde Boker.jpg, Graves of Paula and David Ben-Gurion Image:Sdebokerhome.jpg, A typical home in Sde Boker Image:Tzin Flood.jpg, Flooding in Zin Valley below the Midrasha

References

External links

Village website
.
High school website
{{Authority control Education in Israel Community settlements Populated places established in 1963 Populated places in Southern District (Israel) 1963 establishments in Israel Commemoration of David Ben-Gurion Words and phrases in Modern Hebrew