Natural Resource Basics
Something found in nature that people use, like water, trees, oil, or wind.
What is a natural resource?
A step-by-step process engineers use to solve problems and create solutions.
What is the engineering design process?
The process of taking minerals and resources out of the Earth.
What is mining?
Energy that comes from the sun and is collected using solar panels.
What is solar energy?
A liquid fossil fuel used to make gasoline, plastics, and chemicals.
What is petroleum (or oil)?
A type of resource that can be replaced naturally in a short amount of time, like sunlight or wind.
What is a renewable resource?
The step where you build and test your design.
What is create (and test)?
A type of mining that uses tunnels deep underground.
What is subsurface mining?
Energy made when wind turns large turbines.
What is wind energy?
A gas fossil fuel used for heating, cooking, and making electricity.
What is natural gas?
A type of resource that cannot be replaced quickly and can run out, like oil or coal.
What is a nonrenewable resource?
The goals or things a solution must do to be successful.
What are criteria?
A surface mining method that digs a very large, deep hole.
What is open-pit mining?
Energy that comes from heat inside the Earth.
What is geothermal energy?
A process where water, sand, and chemicals are forced into rock to release oil or gas.
What is fracking (hydraulic fracturing)?
The resource early civilizations built their cities around for drinking, farming, and transportation.
What is water?
Limits like time, money, or materials that affect a design.
What are constraints?
A surface mining method that removes land in long strips near the surface.
What is strip mining?
Energy made using the movement of ocean tides.
What is tidal energy?
A mixture of metals, such as iron mixed with carbon to make steel.
What is an alloy?
The process of fixing land after mining to make it safe and usable again.
What is reclamation?
Improving a design by repeating and testing it again and again.
What is iterating?
A mining method that uses water to break apart land and move rock.
What is hydraulic mining?
A solar technology that uses mirrors to focus sunlight to make heat instead of electricity.
What are heliostats?
Two hard-to-get fossil fuel sources: one is sand mixed with thick oil, and the other is rock that must be heated to get oil out.
What are tar sands and oil shale?