Free English Class! Topic: Natural Resources! 🛢️💎☀️ (Lesson Only)

Well hello and welcome to this English lesson about natural

resources. If you don't know what natural resources are

they're basically everything we find in the world. Sometimes we

find things on the surface of the planet like sand and stones

and things like that. Sometimes we dig into the earth to find

or in other things that just occur naturally on our planet.

There are a number of different kinds of natural resources and

different countries different amounts. Sometimes a country's

wealth is determined by the amount of natural resources

they have and their ability to get them out of the ground or

to extract them or to just find them and sell them to other

countries or make things out of them. So if you're not sure

what natural resources are or if you're not sure how to talk

about natural resources in English stick around because I

think in this lesson you will learn a number of and phrases

that you can use to talk about natural resources. Natural

resources. So the definition of a natural resource would be not

man made. So we define things on this planet in a couple of

ways. We have things that are natural resources. Things that

we find. Things that just exist in the natural world. Those

would be things like sunlight or coal or the soil we grow

plants in. The opposite of a natural resource would be

something that's man made. When something is man made it makes

we it we take natural resources and we combine them in ways to

create new things. So to put it simply a tree is a natural

resource a car is not. I wanted to make sure that you knew the

difference in pronunciation between these two things.

Because they can sound very similar. Water is a resource.

But you might go to the track to watch a racehorse. Notice it

almost sounds the same doesn't it? To me I can clearly

distinguish between the two words. We have natural

resources. But we also have horses that we call race

horses. So water is a resource. A horse could be a racehorse.

There's a funny skit from Saturday night live I think

where a person confuses those two those two words. So I

thought I should mention that. We also sometimes refer to

natural resources as raw materials. You might be

familiar with the word raw because it is used to talk

about food that isn't cooked. Sometimes people go to the

store and they buy raw fish when they take it home they

cook it. But we also use the word raw with the word

materials to talk about natural resources. Sometimes when

you're wanting to make something you need different

natural resources in order to make them. So raw materials is

just another way to talk about natural resources. So You might

need some stone. You might need some Portland cement and you

might need some water. Those would be the raw materials that

you would use to make cement. By the way remember I'm not a

science teacher so sometimes I make mistakes but I think

that's how you make cement. But you'll have to check. Um let's

talk a little bit about some of the actual natural resources.

One very common natural resource in the world is coal.

We use coal for a number of things. Probably the two

biggest uses of coal are for heat and the second are sorry I

lost track there. Two biggest uses for coal either as a a way

to heat our homes and businesses or as a way to

generate electricity. Coal is considered a dirty form of

energy. And the world is trying to move away from using coal as

a source of energy. When you burn coal to heat your house or

when you burn coal to generate electricity it creates a of

pollution. But coal is still readily available. In fact when

I was a kid the house I lived in had a coal shoot on the

outside. And in the basement we had a furnace that burned coal.

When I was really little. Then I remember my parents replaced

it with a different kind of furnace. Um by the way if

you're bad at Christmas you might get a lump of coal from

Santa Claus. That's something that people tell their kids

sometimes. We have oil Right now we are very much an oil

based economy in the world. Many of us drive vehicles. Many

of us need gasoline or diesel fuel in order to fuel our cars.

As I mentioned I heat my house with oil. So oil is very very

important. There are some countries that have a lot of

oil. Countries like Saudi Arabia. Countries like Canada

have lots of oil. In order to get to the oil. You do need to

usually drill into the ground though. Oil reserves are

usually far underground. We also have something called

natural gas. When you drill into the ground in some parts

of Canada and in some other countries you can find natural

gas. Natural gas is a very pure form of gas that will burn

easily and produces very little pollution if any. So natural

gas is commonly used in Canada for us to heat our homes and to

cook. Um it usually burns with a nice little blue flame. And

there's also lots of natural gas offshore. When a natural

resource is found offshore it means it's found below the

bottom of the ocean. So there is lots of natural gas wells in

the ocean around lots of countries as well. We also have

what are called precious metals. Precious metals are

usually not found in their pure form. This is a lump of gold or

and this has gold flakes in it and gold is one of the precious

metals. We've decided human beings have decided that some

metals are more valuable than others. Some metals are more

precious than others. Gold is one of the most precious metals

on the planet. Because it's very nice to look at and it

doesn't change when you polished gold. It has a nice

beautiful colour to it. So we decided thousands of years ago

probably that gold was one of the most precious metals. And

coming in second place is of course silver. Silver is also a

very precious metal. The price of gold is usually higher than

the price of silver. But when people talk about precious

metals. They usually talk about gold and silver. There's no

surprise to me then that these are the two most popular metals

we use to make jewelry. Often when you go and buy a ring or

when you go and buy a necklace you buy a gold necklace or you

buy a silver necklace. The two most popular ones to use. We

also have another kind of precious metal called platinum.

Platinum is also used for jewelry. Platinum is very

valuable because it doesn't corrode. If you ever look at a

car you'll see that eventually it starts to rust. But a metal

like platinum it just stays this way almost all the time. A

very cool metal as well. And then of course we have what are

called gemstones or precious stones. A gemstone is something

like a ruby or an opal or a diamond. I think there's

something called a garnet. I'm not an expert on gemstones or

precious stones. But they are certainly another type of

natural resource that has a lot of value in the world. Many

people in North America they will they will give their

girlfriend a dime ring as an engagement ring and ask her if

she'll marry them. So that's pretty common in North America.

You can also just call them gems. We don't actually say

gemstone very often. That's somewhat formal. I think gem

would be a more common pronunciation. By the way I'm

married to gem and a diamond is a gem. It's a different letter

at the end but So here we go. Diamond. So diamonds are found

in some parts of the world. They are somewhat rare. When

something is rare it means there aren't a lot of them. One

of the things that makes a natural resource valuable can

be its rarity. The fact that there simply aren't very many.

Um but diamonds are found in different places in the world.

Countries that have diamonds usually have large diamond

mines in order to get to the diamonds so that they can sell

them. So there's two things that happen with natural

resources. Sometimes you need to import natural resources.

There are natural resources your country does not have. And

so large container ships like this one will bring them to

your country. You will import natural resources. If you are

in a country with lots of natural resources. You might

export natural resources. I tried to find a boat that was

sailing away. Canada imports some natural Resources and we

export other natural resources. Canada imports things like oil

from the Middle East. We need oil even though we have oil

ourselves. We still need oil. And we export natural resources

like maple syrup. We export natural resources like lumber

which is wood made from trees. Uh and we do export a little

bit of natural gas to our neighbour to the south the

United States. So when you import it means you buy natural

resources from another country and they send it to you. And

when you export it means you sell natural resources to

another country and you send them away. Some natural

resources are located in the ground. There are a lot of coal

mines in different parts of Canada and the United States.

Because coal is usually located underground. So men and women

will dig into the ground and create a mine they will have a

mine shaft that goes down and in the mine they will extract

the coal or other things that are being mined. You can have

gold mines. You can have coal mines. You can have silver

mines anytime you need to dig into the earth in order to get

a natural resource. It's usually called a mine. By the

way just as a joke. This mug is mine. So the word mine does

have a couple different meanings. Sometimes we need to

drill and I mentioned this earlier in the lesson.

Sometimes you need to drill in order to get a natural

resource. Usually we drill for oil. We also drill for a

natural gas. A drill a small drill is something you use to

put a hole in wood. But when you go to get oil or natural

gas. You usually use a big drill. This is an oil rig. This

is an oil platform out in the ocean and it will have the

ability to drill into the floor of the ocean. In order get oil

or natural gas. Um yes the cost for me to drill a natural gas

well is about $50, 000. So the reason I don't do it is because

I'm not sure it would pay for itself because there might not

be very much natural gas there. So sometimes you need to

extract a natural resource. Um maybe you need something like

stone or you need something like sand or you need something

like coal and it's close to the surface. We would simply dig it

up and we would then use the word extract. So sometimes you

need to extract a natural resource. A lot of natural

resources things like precious metals and things like gold and

silver will come in the form of or when you make steel you need

to find iron ore. Ore is basically the natural resource

you want but it's mixed with other things like rock and

other minerals or elements. And so a lot of times you extract

the or and then you need to get the natural resource out of the

or many times you do that using something called a refinery

when you refine something you take it from one state to the

state that you want here's a better example crude oil comes

out of the ground but you need to refinery out of refinery in

order to get gasoline or petrol you might call it in British

English. When you get iron ore out of the ground you need to

refine it in order to get the iron out of the iron ore. You

need to remove what's called the impurities in order to get

the natural resource and we do that at a refinery and the

process is called to refinery. That's the verb you would use.

Sometimes in the case of natural gas or something like

oil there might be a pipeline. A pipeline is just a big pipe

that goes for thousands of kilometres. There are some

pipelines that go all the way from Northern Canada into the

United States. And we pump natural gas and maybe oil

through those pipelines. So a pipeline looks like this. It's

just a big pipe. If you're wondering what a pipe is it's

just a big tube that you pump stuff through. Um so I added

aluminum as one of the metals just so you would realize that

depending on what type of English you're learning there's

two pronunciations. I say aluminum. Americans say

aluminum. In the UK they sell they say aluminium. Maybe I got

that wrong. But here in Canada we say aluminum. In Quebec

there are there is a lot of aluminum. It's very easy to

find aluminum. It's one of the things that that province

exports is aluminum. So when Quebec exports aluminum to

Britain it leaves as aluminum and when it arrives it's then

called aluminium. Interesting how there's two pronunciations.

So there are two kinds of natural resources. There is

something called a renewable natural resource and

non-renewable. I think you understand the difference.

There was just a recent climate meeting where they cop26 where

they were trying to decide how to make the planet better. And

one of the things there was that they suggest we use more

renewable resources and less non-renewable. Renewable

resources are things like the wind. Uh sunlight. Um all of

those things are renewable. They if you use them they don't

run out. Okay the sun doesn't stop shining if you put solar

panels on your roof. But we also have non-renewable forms

of natural resources. Non-renewable resources would

be coal or oil. We know that eventually there will be no

more. Uh even things like diamonds are considered

non-renewable because it takes thousands and thousands and

thousands of years for a diamond to form underground. So

renewable anything that doesn't diminish as you use it. And

non-renewable. Something that where there is a limited

supply. One of the yeah side effects of getting natural

resources is that often it will cause pollution. The process of

refining or creates pollution. The process of extracting

things from different areas sometimes ruins the environment

there. So we have to be very careful when we drill or when

we mine or when we extract natural resources because it

can cause pollution. Uh either in the process or in the stages

afterwards. So I think If anything I wish we would

pollute less. I enjoy my blue sky. Uh I hope that it stays

that way for my kids and my grandkids and for thousands of

years to come. So we have something called fossil fuels.

This was mentioned a bit earlier in the lesson. Fossil

fuels are things like oil that were created underground over a

thousands and thousands of years from decaying plant

matter basically. So they are basically fuels created from a

layer of organic matter under the soil which eventually

became oil. And we just call them fossil fuels. We put them

in that group. Uh because we know that fossil fuels are very

use but they also create pollution. When you drive your

car you're polluting a little bit because you're burning a

fossil fuel. Um so fossil fuels again things like oil. You can

see these barrels are labeled crude oil. That means it's oil

straight from the ground. It has not been refined at all. We

also have of course trees as I mentioned Canada has a lot of

trees. Trees are a natural resource that is also renewable

as long as you replant the trees. It takes about 10, 20,

30, 40 50 100 years for a tree to be big enough to harvest

depending on the variety. But Canada definitely struggles

with we harvest a lot of trees and then we don't always

replant enough. We're always trying to plant more trees. Um

and we usually but not always. So it is a renewable resource

as long as human beings take the time to replant them. Trees

of course are used to make wood or lumber and all of those

things. When I use the word wood it's a general term for a

tree after you've chopped it down. We build our houses out

of wood here in Canada. When I use the word lumber. It usually

means wood that has been changed into like rectangles

and squares. We make it into boards and planks that you can

build things out of it. So then I would use the word lumber.

Where am I at here? Sunlight is a renewable resource. Sunlight

is a natural resource that everyone has in the world. Um

unless you live in a country where it's very very cloudy all

the time. You should always have sunlight. And we can build

something called a solar panel which converts sunlight to

electricity. Very very handy. But sunlight the sun is

definitely a renewable form of energy. It is a natural

resource that hopefully we can more and more of as time goes

forward because it's very clean in terms of a source of energy.

It's a very clean natural resource. And then of course we

have wind. Um you know the nice thing about the sun is it

shines all day. The thing about the wind that's a little

annoying is it doesn't always blow. So wind is a great

natural resource. It's very clean. But sometimes it's not

windy and then the wind turbines don't turn. So that's

one of the challenges we have with some of the renewable

forms of energy. The renewable natural resources is that they

aren't consistent. So that's something we will have to

figure out in the future. So air can be considered a natural

resource. Uh even though we don't really use air directly

air does create the wind. So wind is moving air. But we also

sometimes extract things from the air. Um there are things

like oxygen. There are things like nitrogen. There are

different gases in the air that we use for different things.

Recently and during the pandemic there was a high

demand for oxygen. One of the ways to get oxygen you know

don't quote me on this. They might get oxygen from water.

But they might also extract it from the air. Let's double

check that for a sec. Give me a moment here. The air is a

natural resource. Where oxygen comes from? You can figure that

out later. Um fresh water. So fresh water is considered a

resource for several reasons. One is we need it for drinking.

We need water so that we can drink water. Fresh water is

also a natural resource because it's often used in the

manufacturing process. Lots of factories need fresh water to

maybe cool things down or part of the process or for various

other things. So fresh water generally most big cities are

older cities are located really close to fresh water because

hundreds of years ago people needed that water to survive.

Stone a natural resource. We use stone for a variety of

things. Everything from building our roads. We use

stone when we create cement or concrete to make buildings. We

use stone in a simpler way just to build walls or fences. So

stone is probably one of the first natural resources that

humans used on this planet. Um a long time ago someone said hm

I could build a house out of this stone. And so they built a

house out of it. But stone is used for a wide variety of

things. By the way when you get stone it usually comes from

something called a quarry. And near my house if I drive about

an hour there are two really big stone quarries. Places

where they extract stone where they get bigger stones and they

kind of crunch it up into smaller stones called gravel.

But stone is definitely a very very common natural resource.

We also have sand. By the way sand is used for lot of things

you might not be aware of. Sand is used I think to make glass.

Sand I think might have a role in creating computer chips.

You'll have to do the research on this but sand that very very

fine sand that you find at the beach or in the desert. There

are many different kinds. Some kinds of sand are considered a

valuable natural resource and used for many many different

things. And then of course soil. Soil is kind of that

natural resource we don't always think of but if we

didn't have soil. If we didn't have healthy soil we wouldn't

have food. We need soil in or to grow things. That is the

number one job of soil. It is used for us to grow the things

that we eat. Or to grow the things we feed to animals which

we eat. And then we also have flora and fauna. So flora

refers to anything that grows on this planet that has value

to us. Okay it doesn't necessarily have to have value.

Let me take that back. Flora is any kind of plant. When you

look outside there is very specific types of flora in your

area. Fauna would be all of the animals that live in your area.

All of the wild animals. You wouldn't call for instance if

you some chickens you wouldn't call that fauna. But if you go

out into the woods or if you walk outside of your city and

you see a squirrel or a raccoon or a deer or a lion if you live

in a country that has lions we would consider all of the

natural animals in the world. We would consider them fauna.

And those would be your two major groups of natural

resources of living things. That would be flora and fauna.