ESS.1.3.1
Obtain, evaluate and communicate information to summarize ways in which humans use natural resources.
Embedded Files
District Recommended Resources for 1st Grade Science
Science Phenomena Resources
Next Generation Science Standards YouTube Channel
Step 1: Lesson Standards & Learning Goals
Dimension 1:
Science and Engineering Practice: Obtain, Evaluate and Communicate Information: Obtain information using various texts, text features (e.g., headings, tables of contents, glossaries, electronic menus, icons), and other media that will be useful in describing characteristics of earth materials. Communicate information in tables, writing and extended discussions (NSTA SEP Matrix).
Dimension 2:
Crosscutting Concepts: Systems and System Models
Dimension 3:
Disciplinary Core Ideas:
ESS2.A Wind and water can shape the land. The resulting landforms, together with the materials on the land, provide homes for living things.
ESS2.B Rocks, soils, and sand are present in most areas where plants and animals live. There may also be rivers, streams, lakes, and ponds.
ESS2.C Water is found in the ocean, rivers, lakes, and ponds. It carries soil and rocks from one place to another and determines the variety of life forms that can live in a particular location (A Framework for K-12 Science Education).
Sample Essential Questions
Sample Essential Questions
How do humans use natural resources?
How can I communicate how humans use natural resources?
Vocabulary
Vocabulary
natural resources (e.g. rocks, minerals, soil, water, plants, animals, coal, and oil),
shelter
objects
tools
fertile soil
consume
mined
extracted
Students will be able to...
Students will be able to...
Summarize: Emphasis is on what natural resources are and the ways that humans use natural resources (e.g. rocks, minerals, soil, water, metals, plants, and animals).
Students describe natural resources.
Students explain how they use natural resources every day (e.g. food, shelter, objects, and tools) to meet their needs.
Students understand that natural resources come from Earth but do not exist everywhere on Earth (e.g. water in the desert, certain rocks, fertile soil).
Obtain, Evaluate, and Communicate - Communicate information with others in oral and/or written forms using models, drawings, writing, or numbers that provide detail about scientific ideas. (e.g., what tools/resources students use every day, draw what resources that are grown, eaten, or consumed).
Students will know...
Students will know...
Living things need water, air and resources from the land, and they try to live in places that have the things they need.
Humans use natural resources for everything they do: for example, they use soil and water to grow food, wood to burn to provide heat or to build shelters, and materials such as iron or copper extracted from Earth to make cooking pans.
Step 2: Assessment
Formative Assessments
Formative Assessments
Writing Prompts
What are some examples of natural resources? (e.g., rocks, water, wood, coal, oil).
How are they used? (e.g. pencils, paper, puzzles, bricks, flower pots, building materials, fuel for our cars/homes, etc. ).
Where are natural resources found? (e.g. water comes from lakes, rivers, streams, oceans, trees in forests are cut down to get lumber/wood, coal and oil are mined/extracted from the Earth).
NCDPI Formative Assessment Examples
Mini Projects and Investigations
View the Everything Comes from the Environment color poster. Review the poster together, following each resource—shown in the boxes—from where it begins to how we use it in our homes. You can print out the poster in black and white so that kids can color it themselves.
Play a resource card game. Print out and cut apart the Natural Resource Cards and Product Cards. Lay out the natural resource cards and have kids match the product cards to the resources used to make them.
Investigate the process of how trees are made into paper. First, have students predict what they think the process is. Next, watch this video to learn how the process works. Last, have students turn and talk about if their prediction was correct or incorrect.
Art Connection: Paper Mache bowl using recycled materials
Culminating Activity
Share What You Know (source: PebbleGo): Students will draw and write about one natural resource that they learned about.
Natural Resources Seesaw activity
Step 3: Lesson Instructions
Possible Activating Strategies
Possible Activating Strategies
Anchor Chart:
What are Natural Resources?
The activity. involves students finding objects in the classroom and predicting what natural resource was used to make the objects.
GfW-Cards.pdfExploration:
Goods from the Woods:
GFW Product Cards: Students explore common items that come from trees. Have students discuss if they think the product comes from trees. (They all come from trees.) Ask what surprised them most.
Consider ordering the activity box from NC Forestry. Contact Contact Abigail Ridge (aridge@ncforestry.org) for your kit.
Additional Literacy Connections
Our Natural Resources by Jennifer Prior
Where Does it Come From? By Lisa Schnell
📚 Picture Books for Read-Aloud & Discussion
📚 Picture Books for Read-Aloud & Discussion
📖 Earth’s Resources – Ann O. Squire
A simple introduction to different types of natural resources and how we use them.
Be a Friend to Trees – Patricia Lauber
Explains how trees provide us with oxygen, wood, fruit, and shade.
📖 The Busy Beaver – Nicholas Oldland
A humorous story about a beaver who cuts down too many trees without thinking of the consequences.
📖 The Great Paper Caper – Oliver Jeffers
A fun mystery about missing trees and why they are so important.
📖 What’s So Bad About Gasoline? – Anne Rockwell
Introduces fossil fuels and the impact of energy use.
📖 The Water Princess – Susan Verde
Based on a true story about children who must walk miles to get clean water.
📖 One Well: The Story of Water on Earth – Rochelle Strauss
Explores the importance of water as a shared natural resource.
📖 Compost Stew: An A to Z Recipe for the Earth – Mary McKenna Siddals
Shows how food scraps can be reused to create healthy soil.
📖 Energy Island: How One Community Harnessed the Wind and Changed Their World – Allan Drummond
True story about a small island that switched to renewable energy.
📖 How a House is Built – Gail Gibbons
Explains how natural resources (wood, stone, clay) are used to build homes.
📖 Rocks: Hard, Soft, Smooth, and Rough – Natalie Rosinsky
Introduces how we use rocks and minerals for buildings, jewelry, and tools.
📖 From Seed to Plant – Gail Gibbons
Shows how plants provide food, medicine, and materials.
Teacher Resources
Teacher Resources
EBSCO: NCEd, EPSCO, Explora K-3, search topic
Pebble Go (school-based subscription required)
Science A-Z
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