Natural Resources(2025-2026)

Vocabulary:  Resource, renewable, nonrenewable

After talking about Rocks, minerals and soils, maybe you will appreciate what the ground under our feet is and what it has to offer us.

That will become more apparent to you after this lesson - not only the ground under our feet, but the air and water around us, too.

The environment around us gives us everything we need to live.  From the basics of life such as air to breathe, water to drink, materials for shelter and finally, the energy for our modern lives. 

Soils (2025-2026)

 Vocabulary:  Bedrock/parent material, soil, clay, loam, sand, humus.

Soil is more that just simple "dirt".

It is a combination of rocks, which contain minerals, and organic matter - which is made up of living things that have died and decomposed.

Soils evolve as rock breaks down or "weathers" and more and more organic matter is added to it over time, making it thick and fertile.

The following video is short and sweet -  

- it gives 3 types of soil while we must use 4,

- however, it also uses the term "silt".  

- it also briefly talks about how each behaves with water.

The video below doesn't quite match up with our Workbook notes, but is informative up to the 3 minute mark.  After that, it goes into waaay too much detail.

It  replaces our "loam" term with silt - probably because loam is the best kind of soil.

The triangular graph it uses to identify the type of soil you have is neat but this is not info. you need to remember on this topic.

Minerals (2025-2026)

 Vocabulary:  Minerals, lustre, effervescence, streak.

Now that we know about the 3 types of rocks, we now learn that minerals are IN rocks - they are the ingredients for making rocks.

Minerals are ranked from softest to hardest on Mohs Hardness scale.

We have 6 different tests to help identify a mineral - we use the acronym "CHLEMS" to remember them.