EXPLORING BIODIVERSITY: A Guide for Educators Around the World

ACTIVITY 8: THINKING ABOUT
TOMORROW
OBJECTIVES: Explore the issue of
sustainable use of natural resources.
Describe several consequences of
unsustainable use of natural
resources for both people and other
species. Recognise the difficulty in
identifying sustainable ways to use
resources when demand and supplies
change.
SUBJECTS: Science, Social Studies,
Mathematics
SKILLS: reading, comprehension,
organising, interpreting (reasoning),
planning, problem solving, proposing
solutions, presenting (explaining),
citizenship (working in a group)
AGES: 9+
TIME: one session
MATERIALS: chalkboard, dry beans,
trays or flat containers for beans, a
stopwatch or clock
BACKGROUND
Natural resources are the raw materials that we
use every day. That includes everything we eat, as
well as the materials we use to build our houses
and make our clothes, tools, and many other
things. The air we breathe, the water we drink,
and the land we use to grow our food are also
natural resources. We can therefore say that natural
resources are all the things that humans as well
as other species depend on for their survival.
Since natural resources encompass so many
different things, scientists have created two categories
for talking about them. Renewable
resources are those that can be replenished,
either naturally or through human processes.
Trees, for example, are a renewable resource since
they can either be replanted by humans or
naturally reseeded. Sunlight is also a renewable
resource because we always have a steady supply
of it, no matter how much we use. For a resource
to be considered truly renewable, it must either
be constantly generating itself (such as sunlight),
it has to replenish itself in a couple of generations
or less, or we have to be able to replenish it in the
same amount of time.
Non-renewable resources, on the other hand,
exist only in definitive quantities. This means
that once they are used up, they may take millions
of years to be replenished, or they may be
gone forever. This includes the fossil fuels that
our factories, power plants, and vehicles run on
and the minerals we use to make metals and
other materials. It also includes the topsoil that
we need to grow our crops.
Many scientists would agree that we are using our
natural resources faster than they can be replenished.
Since we rely on natural resources for our
survival, we can neither afford to use them all up
nor stop using them completely. Between the two
extremes, however, is sustainable use. Sustainably
Activity adapted with permission from Biodiversity Basics, published by World Wildlife Fund as part of Windows on the Wild, an international
biodiversity education program. ©1999.
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