Natural resources

This small community sits on flat land. A large forest grows nearby. The soil is rich in nutrients. This is fertile ground, which allows the people here to grow their food and practise agriculture. And they cut trees from the forest.

They build their houses with the wood, and the trees also provide fuel to heat their homes. This community sits on the coast. It’s a mountainous and rocky place, and the ground is not good for farming. The houses are built of stone. To get food, the people go out to sea and catch fish.

Forests Land rich with nutrients. Stone Fish All these things can be used by people, or bring benefit in various ways. These are resources, which exist in nature, and have not been created by people. They are natural resources. The two villages have access to different natural resources.

This means that the people living in the villages have different ways of life. In one village, they have become farmers, who live on what comes from the land and the forest. In the other village, they have become fishermen. Availability - or lack - of resources shapes people’s lives. Most natural resources cannot be used as they are.

If we take fish from the sea, it can’t be eaten right away. It must be cleaned, and prepared in some way. The natural resource, ‘fish’ is a raw material, that is refined into food. The natural resource, iron ore is dug from mines. The ore contains iron, but also many other substances.

To get pure iron, the ore must first be enriched. Iron ore therefore is also a raw material, and by enrichment it is refined into iron. And the iron can then be used to produce tools or equipment. On this flatland, strong winds are often blowing. A wind power station converts the air’s kinetic energy into electricity.

The energy in the wind is captured. This too, is a kind of refining process. And here, it’s sunny. The rays of the sun fall on solar panels, which take energy from the sunlight and charge up a battery. The sunlight is refined into electricity.

Wind or sunlight are not things that we can grab hold of. They can’t be dug from a mine like iron ore, or pulled from the sea like fish, but nevertheless they are natural resources that people can use and benefit from. From natural resources, we can get food, water, energy, fuel, and materials we need. Most natural resources are raw materials that people refine. Natural resources are unevenly distributed around the world.