Natural resources

📖 In short

Natural resources are all the useful things we take from nature to live: water, air, soil, plants, animals, minerals, oil and coal. We must use them wisely so they last for us and for future generations.

🤩 Did you know?

Some minerals, like bauxite, contain lots of aluminum.
Recycling just one aluminum can saves a lot of energy.
Copper is one of the metals becoming scarcer on Earth.
Forests give us wood and oxygen and protect the soil.

🔎 Find out more

🌟 Renewable resources

Some resources renew themselves if we look after them, like trees we replant, fish that breed, water that comes back with the rain, sunlight and wind.

🔍 Resources that run out

Some resources take millions of years to form, like oil, coal, gas and minerals. If we use them all up they won't come back, so we must use them carefully.

💡 Clean energy

Today people use more and more energy from the sun, wind and water, because it doesn't run out or pollute the air like burning oil and coal.

🎯 How can you help?

Turn off the lights when you leave a room, turn off the tap while you brush your teeth, reuse paper and plastic, and don't throw food away.

🧩 Test yourself

1 Which of these resources is renewable?

2 How can you save water?

3 Which picture shows “Natural resources”?

🌋 Discover more

📷 Picture sources: Wikimedia Commons

Makemake at de.wikipedia · CC BY-SA 3.0