Hi. It's Paul Andersen and this is disciplinary core idea ESS3A. It's on natural
resources. Resources are what we require to live. And since we live on the earth we get
our resources from the earth. We call those natural resources. And there's a lot of different
types of natural resources. It could be the air you breathe. The water you drink. The
soil you grow your crops in. Minerals. Metals. Energy. Plants. Animals. And all of this we're
getting from our environment. And we could break all of those natural resources into
two types. We have what are called renewable resources. Wind is an example of energy that's
renewable. As the sun shines on the earth the air starts to move around and we're going
to be able to generate energy from that. Nonrenewable resources are resources that don't come back
within our life time. And so oil is an example of that. Oil contains energy that was stored
millions of years ago from ancient rain forests. And if we use that up, it's gone. It's not
going to come back at least within our life time. Another thing you should understand
about natural resources is that they're not uniformly distributed on our planet. They're
going to be mixed up. And so where do humans live? We're living where we can get as many
of the resources as we can possibly find. But we're not going to have all of the resources
there. And so if you look at the distribution of humans on our planet we're going to find
that we're finding that we're living in areas where you can get enough food. Enough water.
But we don't get all of our resources. So we have to kind of trade and ship those around
on our planet. This map right here shows the population. In other words the cities that
have high population. Each of the red dots on this map represents a city with at least
a million people. We call those mega cities. And what we're finding is that as you get
more and more people on our planet they're requiring more and more resources. And so
we have to really balance our use of nonrenewable resources. Especially if they have some detrimental
cause. And thinking of that fossil fuels are really driving the economies right now. Coal
and oil. And what's the benefit of coal and oil? They're relatively cheap. We stored energy
along time ago. And now we can kind of cash in on that. The problem is that we have costs
associated with nonrenewable resources. Number one, they're not going to last forever. And
number two, a lot of them have unintended consequences. As we burn fossil fuels we're
putting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. And that over time is going to increase the
temperature. And then we're going to have costs associated with that. And so what we're
seeing is a switch from nonrenewable to renewable resources. And that being driven by two things.
Number one is technology. Solar energy wasn't very effective. And it was really expensive
you know decades ago. But that's changing really really quickly. And things like geothermal,
hydroelectric, wind generation is generating more energy. And it's a more valuable resource.
And it will be over time. We'll also have to use regulations. In other words when you
put things into the atmosphere you're not really being penalized for that. You're putting
carbon into the atmosphere, it's going to have some unintended consequences in the future.
And so we'll have to use wise regulations and increasing technology to shift from nonrenewable
to renewable resources. And so how do you teach this? What's the teaching progression?
Well in the lower elementary grades you want students to understand that humans require
resources. And they require it from the land, the air and the water. And so let's use a
real simple example of that. What do we need from the land? Well we need food. And so when
we grow corn, for example, we need nutrients from the land or the soil. We nutrients from
the air. And we also need water for that. If we get energy from our environment, burning
wood is going to require energy and that's coming from the land as well. And if we want
to fry up some eggs we're going to require minerals and we're going to have to get that
from the land as well. And so everything we require for resources we're getting from the
land itself. As we move into the upper elementary grades you want to start talking about this
idea of natural resources. And that all of the resources we require to live have to come
from our planet. Another thing you should talk about at this point is make sure you're
delineating the difference between a renewable resource, one that we can just, it comes back
over our lifetime. And nonrenewable resources. So as we dig up metal, if we aren't recycling
those, if we're just disposing of it, it's going to be a nonrenewable resource. As you
move into middle school we want to talk about resources and where they're found. And that
they're limited. And that they're not evenly distributed on our planet. And so we have
to be wise in the way that we're using those resources. And then we want to talk about
how there's going to be increases in technology which are going to allow us to shift from
nonrenewable to renewable resources. But we're going to have to use regulations to make sure
that we're doing this fairly and effectively across the globe. As you move into high school
you want to address this idea that our population is increasing. And as we get more and more
people, they're going to require more and more resources. And so we have to look at
all of the resources on our planet. Where are they found? How can we share them equally?
And how can we make sure that as people in developing countries start to get what people
in developed countries have had for a long time, how do we do that effectively without
damaging the planet? So those are natural resources. They're incredibly important. And
I hope that was helpful.