Albert Katz International School for Desert Studies Albert Katz International School for Desert Studies The Albert Katz International School for Desert Studies is a faculty within the Jacob Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research and part of the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. It is located in Midreshet Ben-Gurion in the centre of the Negev desert in Israel and was established in 1999. The school offers Master's degrees (both MA and MSc) in Desert Studies, with subjects including physics, ecology, water management, biochemistry, architecture and social science, all with a desert slant. Over 100 students attend the school, and mostly live in specially built housing designed to be
Negev of the Negev are Jews, while 160,000 or 25% are Bedouin. Of the Bedouin population (a demographic with a semi-nomadic tradition), half live in unrecognized villages, and half live in towns built for them by the Israeli government between the 1960s and 1980s; the largest of these is Rahat. The population of the Negev is expected to reach 1.2 million by 2025. It has been projected that the Beersheba metropolitan area will reach a population of 1 million by 2020, and Arad, Yeruham, and Dimona will triple in size by 2025. Blueprint Negev is a Jewish National Fund project introduced