What Are Natural Resources?
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Student Fact Sheet B-1 What are Natural Resources? Everything Comes From the Earth! For instance, a lot of the trees we use for Do you love chewing bubble making paper come from the Southeastern gum? Do you enjoy hula hooping forests of the United States. Petroleum or or playing baseball? Did you oil comes from deep underground, in places know that all of these things, like the Middle East, and from underneath from bubble gum machines to the ocean floor. Aluminum comes from a the stitching on a baseball come mineral called bauxite, which is found in the from the earth? In fact, everything we use tropical rainforests of South America and comes from something originally found in other parts of the world. Even the food we nature! We call these things natural eat often travels thousands of miles before it resources. Natural resources come from ever reaches our plates. nature and are used or turned into the things Aluminum Cans and Toucans that we want and need to live. Besides providing humans with What do Natural Resources Give Us? natural resources that we need From the ancient pyramids of and want, the earth also provides Egypt to rockets in space, habitat, or homes, for animals. everything human beings Very often, while trying to get have ever made or used natural resources like trees, oil comes from natural or minerals, humans destroy animal resources. The earth’s habitat. Let’s look at bauxite, for soil, sunlight, and water grow the plants that example. Since this mineral has to be give us the food we eat. The heat that keeps mined, or taken out of the ground, from our homes warm in the winter comes mostly areas like the rainforest, trees and other from oil and coal. The metals that we use to plants in the forest must first be cut down. make computers and cans come from These trees and plants provide food and minerals found in the earth’s crust. create natural habitat for animals like the Natural resources provide us with the jaguar, the spider monkey, and the toucan. things we need, such as air, water, and food, Without their rainforest habitat, these as well as things we may want, such as animals can’t survive. television, toys, and soda. Will Natural Resources Last Forever? Where do We Find Natural Resources? Although we may have Although natural resources come everything we need now, from the earth, they are not there are many natural always found right where we resources that won’t be need them. Very often, around forever. Renewable natural resources come from resources are natural far away places before they resources that will continue end up in our home or city. to replenish themselves, usually by reproducing or growing again. Plants and SFEnvironmentKids.org sunlight are examples of resources that are Let’s Save our Natural Resources renewable. Non-renewable resources, There are many ways that we however, cannot grow back once they have can help save or conserve our been used up, and the earth will not make natural resources. more for us to use. Oil and other minerals We can be smart about the like bauxite and gold are examples of non- things we use now, and use renewable resources. renewable resources whenever Stop Waste! possible. For instance, the Even though some natural electricity we want does not resources are renewable, we must have to come from oil or coal, which are use them carefully, so we don’t non-renewable resources. We can use run out. Sometimes the natural energy from the sun, the wind, and even the resource cannot replenish, or ocean tides to heat our homes and power our refill itself as fast as humans are cities. These sources of renewable energy consuming or using it. Fresh don’t create pollution and they will never run water is an example of a out! renewable resource that we need to use We can also look for alternatives, or carefully. Although over time, fresh water different natural resources, to use. This can can replenish itself through the water cycle, give us the things we need without using up we are actually using up our fresh water too much of one kind of natural resource. supplies faster than it’s being replenished. For instance, we can actually make tree-free During times of drought or very little paper from plants besides trees, such as rainfall, if water is used up too quickly it can bamboo and hemp, and even old blue jeans! leave some people without any water at all. Reduce First! What’s in a Bottle? The most important thing we It takes a lot of natural resources can do to protect nature and to make the simple things we conserve resources is to use use everyday. For example, less stuff! When we reduce plastic bottles are made from the amount of stuff we buy or oil or petroleum. Most of the use, we help conserve petroleum used in the United resources in the first place. When we reuse States comes from far away something over and over again, we give that countries. In order to get the materials item a longer life of use before it has to be needed to make a plastic bottle, companies recycled or thrown away. And when we have to use natural resources to travel to the recycle things like paper, bottles or metal, country, build the equipment needed to drill we turn something old into something new, and remove the oil from the ground, send it which keeps us from having to use more back to the factory and finally make a bottle natural resources to make new things. out of it. Once the bottle is made, more We must respect the things we get natural resources are needed to ship the from our planet and realize that by bottle from the factory to our store shelves. conserving natural resources and protecting As you can see, this all takes a lot of work— nature, that we are protecting our future and and a lot of natural resources! the future of all living things! SFEnvironmentKids.org .