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GEOGRAPHY
THE SOLAR SYSTEM
The solar system is made up of the sun and everything that orbits around it, including planets, moons, asteroids, comets and meteoroids. The sun is by far the largest object in our solar system, containing 99.8 percent of the solar system's mass. It sheds most of the heat and light that makes life possible on Earth and possibly elsewhere. Planets orbit the sun in oval-shaped paths called ellipses, with the sun slightly off-center of each ellipse.
The solar system comprises of the sun and the 8 planets, approximately 170 natural planetary satellites (moons), and countless asteroids, meteorites, and comets.
Inner solar system
The four inner four planets — Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars — are made up mostly of iron and rock. They are known as terrestrial or earthlike planets because of their similar size and composition. Earth has one natural satellite — the moon — and Mars has two moons — Deimos and Phobos
The outer planets — Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune — are giant worlds with thick outer layers of gas.
SHAPE OF THE EARTH
The shape of the earth is spherical that is slightly bulging at the Equatorial region and a bit flattened at the North Pole and South Pole. Actually, the shape of the earth is an oblate spheroid, which appears to be spherical around the center region, though quite flat on two ends.
1.ship sail off to sea
2. Watch a lunar eclipse
3. Circular horizon
4. Different time zones
5. Sunrise and sunset
6. Measure shadows across the country
BIOMES
What are biomes?
Biomes are areas of our planet with similar climates, landscapes, animals and plants. What lives in each biome depends on:
i. how warm or cold it is
ii. how dry or wet it is
iii. how fertile the soil is
The animals in a biome depend upon plants for food. The plants in a biome often also depend upon the animals for spreading pollen and seeds so that new plants can grow. So both plants and animals rely on each other to stay alive.
Types of biome
Tropical rainforests are hot and wet all year round. They are home to half of all the different types of plants and animals on the planet.
Deserts are hot and dry all year round. The only things that grow are cacti and small shrubs because the soil is shallow and rocky. Animals come out at dusk when it is cooler.
The savannah is hot all year round with a long, dry season. Only grasses and shrubs grow here but it is home to lots of different types of animals such as elephants, zebras and wildebeest.
Woodlands are habitats where the main plants found are trees, but mosses, ferns and lichen can also be found. The climate is warm and mild, with more rain falling in the winter than the summer.
Grasslands are areas of land that are vast and open, with grasses being the main plants. The largest grasslands are found in East Africa. Zebras, giraffes, elephants and rhinos can all be found living in grasslands.
The tundra is the coldest of all the biomes. There is very little rain or snow and the temperatures are freezing. Winters are long and summers are short. Part of the soil is frozen all year round, although the top part defrosts in summer and plants such as mosses can grow.
SUSTAINABILITY AND PLASTICS
What is recycling?
When something is recycled it is reused or turned into something else. Materials such as glass, metal and paper are quite easy to recycle and certain types of plastic are too.
Objects that aren’t recycled, such as things that go in the rubbish, are taken to landfill sites. These are places where rubbish gets buried and left to rot away and biodegrade.
Single-use plastics
Some plastic objects are only used once then thrown away. These are called single-use plastics and include things such as plastic bags, bottles, straws and crisp packets. These objects cannot be recycled and can take hundreds of years to biodegrade. It is not sustainable to keep on using them - and if we do, we could permanently harm our environment.
Plastic is also harming animals and wildlife in rivers, lakes and oceans - they can get tangled up in plastic objects or can even eat them. However, by recycling, reducing the packaging we use and reusing things such as bags and bottles, hopefully together we can all help save our planet.
RIVERS
What is a river?
A river is a moving body of water that flows from its source on high ground, across land, and then into another body of water, which could be a lake, the sea, an ocean or even another river.
A river flows along a channel with banks on both sides and a bed at the bottom. If there is lots of rainfall, or snow or ice melting, rivers often rise over the top of their banks and begin to flow onto the floodplains at either side.
How are rivers formed?
Rivers usually begin in upland areas, when rain falls on high ground and begins to flow downhill. They always flow downhill because of gravity.
They then flow across the land - meandering - or going around objects such as hills or large rocks. They flow until they reach another body of water.
As rivers flow, they erode - or wear away - the land. Over a long period of time rivers create valleys, or gorges and canyons if the river is strong enough to erode rock. They take the sediment - bits of soil and rock - and carry it along with them.
Small rivers are usually known as streams, brooks or creeks. If they flow from underground they are called springs.
OCEANS OF THE WORLD
There are five oceans that cover just over 70% of our planet, and they are all connected together:
1. the Atlantic Ocean
2. the Pacific Ocean
3. the Indian Ocean
4. the Southern Ocean
5. the Arctic Ocean
The nearest ocean to the UK is the Atlantic Ocean. It stretches from Europe to North and South America, and is the second largest of the five oceans.
What are ocean currents?
The water in the oceans is constantly moving in patterns called currents. Some currents flow quickly, while some move very slowly. As the currents flow around the planet they move cold and warm water from one place to another, changing climate and temperatures all over the world. The UK would be much colder if it wasn’t warmed by water that travels from the Caribbean - called the North Atlantic Drift.
The ocean currents also help move anything that floats in them. This can be sea creatures or ships, but unfortunately can also be rubbish that has been dumped carelessly by people. This rubbish finds its way around the world, pollutes the oceans and can be harmful to sea creatures. Some kinds of rubbish, such as plastic are eaten by sea creatures. This causes them lots of problems and can even kill them.
EARTHQUAKES
Structure of the Earth
The Earth is made up of different layers:
1. the core at the centre, which is mainly metal
2. the mantle, which is mainly rock
3. the crust, which is the part we can see
The crust (together with the upper layer of the mantle) is made up of different pieces, called plates. These plates fit together like a jigsaw and are moving at a rate of a few centimetres a year, in different directions and at different speeds.
Some plates slide past each other, others move away from each other and some bump into each other. Sometimes these plates lock together when they meet. This is called a plate boundary or a fault line.
What are earthquakes?
As plates carry on moving in different directions over long periods of time, friction causes energy to build up. Eventually it becomes so great that the energy is released, which creates a shock wave - an earthquake. If the earthquake is beneath the ocean it can create a series of huge waves, called a tsunami.
There are thousands of earthquakes across the world each day and some are so small that they can only be detected by specialist equipment. Others can be so intense that they can create lots of damage and destroy towns and cities. The Richter magnitude scale is used to measure the size of earthquakes.
Many earthquakes occur around the Pacific Ocean. People who live there, in countries such as Japan, are used to earthquakes happening and build earthquake-resistant buildings that sway with the shock waves rather than fall down.
VOLCANOES
What are volcanoes?
A volcano is an opening in the Earth’s crust that allows magma, hot ash and gases to escape. Volcanoes can look like mountains or small hills, depending on what type they are.
Magma is molten rock - rock that is so hot it has turned into liquid. When magma reaches the surface of the Earth it is called lava and comes out of the volcano as a volcanic eruption, along with gases and ash.
Volcanic eruptions
Most volcanic eruptions are caused by tectonic plates moving towards each other, which usually produces violent eruptions. Other volcanoes, such as Mauna Loa in Hawaii are caused by hot spots in the Earth’s crust. These do not erupt violently and lava usually flows slowly out of them.
Eruptions from volcanoes can be very dangerous. They can produce:
pyroclastic flows - fast moving clouds of hot ash, gas and rock
ash clouds - small pieces of rock and glass that can be carried in the air for many kilometres
volcanic bombs - large bits of very hot rock blown out of a volcano
Volcanoes can, however, help people living near them earn money by bringing in tourists to the area and improving the soil so that crops can be grown.
SETTLEMENTS
What are settlements?
Settlements are places where people live and sometimes work.
They can be small or large depending on how many people live there and how many facilities there are.
Facilities are places where certain things happen, for example, schools for education, parks for playing or shops for selling things.
Types of settlement
1. A hamlet is a very small settlement with just a group of houses.
2. A village is also small but may have houses, a primary school, a few shops, a Post Office and a village hall.
3. A town is larger than a village, with lots of houses, primary and secondary schools, as well as sometimes having a railway station and shopping centre.
4. A city is the largest type of settlement, containing lots of buildings and lots of people. They usually have hospitals, sports facilities, universities, shops, offices, many houses and a cathedral.
Some settlements also have a special use, or function. For example:
1. ports - by a river or sea for ships to transport goods
2. market towns - where local farmers sell goods
3. resorts - for people to go on holiday
WEATHER AND CLIMATE
Weather involves air conditions that occur over a short time, while climate involves the average patterns of weather over a long period of time. Weather reflects short-term conditions of the atmosphere while climate is the average daily weather for an extended period of time at a certain location. ... Weather can change from minute-to-minute, hour-to-hour, day-to-day, and season-to-season. Climate, is the average of weather over time and space
BASIS FOR COMPARISON
WEATHER
CLIMATE
Meaning
Weather is day-to-day information of the changes in the atmospheric condition in any area.
Climate is statistical weather information that provides information about the average weather condition of a particular place over a long period.
Duration
The short term atmospheric condition of any place is the weather, which may vary by time-to-time.
The long term average weather atmospheric condition of a place or country is the climate.
Affected By
Weather is affected by temperature, pressure, humidity, cloudiness, wind, precipitation, rain, flooding, ice storms, etc.
The climate is the long term observations of the atmospheric conditions at any location like humidity, temperature, the sunshine, wind, etc.
It affects the
The weather may affect the day-to-day occupation, and it may hamper transportation services, agriculture, etc.
Climate significantly affects agriculture, industries, the livelihood of the peoples.
Changes observed
The changes in the weather condition can be observed very frequently.
The changes in climate take a longer time to change.
Studied by
Weather forecasting is observed by the Meteorological Department of any particular place, and the study is known as Meteorology.
The Climate Prediction Centre predicts climate and its study is known as Climatology.
NATURAL RESOURCES IN NIGERIA
What are natural resources?
Natural resources are materials or substances that are produced by the environment. Humans use natural resources to survive. They can be used to heat our homes, transport us around the world, feed us and clothe us
The principal mineral resources include fossil fuels (petroleum, natural gas, coal, and lignite), metallic minerals (tin, columbite, iron, lead, zinc, gold), radioactive minerals (uranium, thorite, monazite, and zircon), and non-metallic minerals (limestone, marble, gravel, clay, shale, feldspar, etc.)
Mineral resources in Nigeria and their locations
Bitumen – Lagos, Edo, Ondo, Ogun. Coal – Ondo, Enugu.
Oil and gas – Akwa Ibom, Abia, Bayelsa, Edo, Delta, Ondo, Rivers, Imo.
Gold – Edo, Ebonyi, Kaduna, Ijesha, Oyo.
Iron ore – Benue, Anambra, Kogi State, Kwara, Delta State.
Lead and zinc – Ebonyi, Benue, Ogoja, Kano.
Salt – Akwa Ibom, Abia, Ebonyi, Cross River.
Tin – Jos, Bauchi.
AGRICULTURAL RESOURCES IN NIGERIA AND THEIR LOCATIONS
Agricultural resources are extremely important for the country’s economic purposes just like the mineral resources. They are not only used for export and trading like the mineral ones, but they also can be consumed directly by Nigerian people. Here is the list of the important agricultural resources in the country, and the states where you can find them:
Cocoa – Edo, Anambra, Imo, Kwara, Ondo, Ogun, Osun, Oyo.
Coffee – Kwara, Bauchi, Osun.
Cotton – Katsina, Kano, Niger, Kwara, Sokoto.
Groundnut – Ebonyi, Katsina, Sokoto, Kano, Niger
. Kola nut – Ogun, Oyo, Osun, Kwara.
Oil palm – Akwa Ibom, Imo, Anambra, Ondo, Oyo, Aba.
Plantain – Ogun, Oyo, Osun.
Rubber – Delta, Cross River, Ogun, Edo.
Sugarcane – Sokoto.
Timber – Edo, Ogun, Ondo, Delta.
FOSSIL FUELS AND RENEWABLE ENERGY
What are fossil fuels?
Much of the world’s energy is produced by burning fossil fuels such as oil, coal and gas. These natural resources are formed from the remains of plants and animals that died millions of years ago. They are used to power everything from planes to gas cookers.
Burning fossil fuels creates carbon dioxide gas, which is damaging to the environment and is making the Earth warmer than it should be. Once fossil fuels are gone they cannot be replaced, so people are now using renewable sources of energy.
What is renewable energy?
Renewable energy is a natural source of energy that will never run out. Wind, the Sun and water are renewable energy sources that can be used to create electricity.
There are different types of renewable energy:
Hydropower - moving water helps create electricity by turning turbines under the sea as the tide moves in and out, or by using water stored in a dam.
Solar energy - solar panels collect energy from the Sun to create electricity.
Wind energy - wind turns turbines to create electricity.
Geothermal energy - volcanic activity can be used for heating water and the steam produced can be used to power generators and create electricity.
These sources of energy are much cleaner to use than fossil fuels because they do not produce harmful gases that cause pollution and climate change.
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