All synthetic materials began as natural materials. An engaging lesson begins with a hands-on activity and an example of the type of research that scholars perform independently. Then pupils receive a topic and begin researching the...

A series on environmental engineering introduces the class to issues that environmental engineers work to solve. This first instructional activity focuses on air and land issues, and looks at ways to reduce pollution.

How are maps like fish? They both have scales. The chapter includes six different activities at three different levels. Scholars complete activities using natural resources, learn how to read a map, see how to make a compass rosette,...

The children in your class will likely be among the learners who invent creative ways to harness the earth's renewable energy resources. Encourage their critical thinking with a lesson about wind energy and creating wind turbines. Using...

North American Indian civilizations had already been in place for over 10,000 years before the arrival of European settlers. Introduce your young historians to Indian tribes that lived in the Chesapeake region in the early seventeenth...

Teach your class some fairly complex terms—factors of production, human resources, capital resources, natural resources, and intermediate goods—with a storybook (Messy Bessey's Holidays), plenty of visuals and handouts, and related...

Trying to plan an engaging elementary science unit on natural resources? Conserve your energy! This five-part series of lessons and hands-on activities has exactly what you need to teach young scholars about the importance of conservation.

Discuss wants and needs with your elementary ecologists and get them to consider what would happen to our natural resources if we all got everything that we want. Learners play a card sorting game and take an ecological footprint quiz on...

What happens to our recycling once it is hauled away? In the third of four Earth Day lessons about recycling and reducing our impact on the world's natural resources, learners explore where recycled materials go and what becomes of them....

Humans are quickly depleting Earth's fossil fuels and locating them is becoming increasingly difficult! Layered muffins are used for models as young geologists take core samples in order to determine the presence of oil. Consider first...

The Mining Act of 1872 allows mining companies to purchase land from the U.S. Government at 1872 prices - about $5.00 an acre! This video features the town of Crested Butte, Colorado, and a mountain just outside of town that was...

The Harold Keen Coal Company has produced an excellent video which shows the viewer all about the process of mining coal that shows some rarely-seen images of the intricacies of underground mining. Surface mining is also described in...

Learn a lot about copper and its uses from watching this excellent video. Mining techniques, facts about copper, and a very interesting section on the geology behind how copper ore has come to be present underground are all part of this...

The United States Steel Company has produced this interesting, fast-paced video which takes the viewer through entire process of making steel from ore that is mined. It is interesting to note that there are hundreds of varieties of steel...

Introduce youngsters to the term ecological footprint. Learners identify ways in which humans affect the environment. They look at the problems associated with the use of natural resources, and focus on ways to preserve natural...