Resources and the Environment
Natural resources are things found in nature that people can use.
Minerals are substances found on Earth that are neither animal nor vegetable.
Fossil fuels are fuels formed from the remains of plants and animals that lived thousands of years ago.
Renewable resources are resources that can be renewed or replaced.
Nonrenewable resources are resources that cannot be easily replaced.
Preserving and protecting resources is called conservation.
The environment is made up of all the things that surround us.
Pollution is addition of harmful substances to the air, water or soil.
Citizen heroes protecting the land:
What could you do to protect your environment? Write the few words about it, like for a homework we had.
Migration to Americas
Ice age was a long period of extreme cold.
Glaciers are thick sheets of ice.
The Bering Strait is a narrow stretch of water that separates Asia and North America.
Many scholars believe that people first began migrate, to move to the Americas between 40 000 and 10 000 years ago.
40 000 – 10 000 years ago – Durng the Ice Age, hunters may have migrated across a land bridge from Asia to North America.
10 000 years ago – Early People lived by hunting and gathering.
7000 years ago – The early people learned how to grow food and become members of settled communities.
Theory is a possible explanation.
Earliest people left no written record of now they lived. Clues they left behind – called artifacts – tell us. An artifact is an object that someone made in the past.
Early Americans left behind stone tools as an artifact.
Archaeologists study artifacts of people who lived long ago and draw conclusions from them.
Early American cultures
3000 years ago – American Indian groups began building mounds in eastern North America.
2500 years ago – Inuit reached Alaska from Asia.
2000 years ago – The Anasazi culture developed in the South west.
A ceremony is an activity done for a special purpose or event, such as a birth, wedding, or death.
A mesa is a high, flat landform that rises steeply from the land around it. Mesa means table in Spanish.
A drought is a long period without rain.
The Rise of Empires
3000 years ago – Mayan civilization began to develop.
About 900 years ago – Mayan civilization declined and the Maya began leaving their cities.
About 1200 Aztec civilization began in Mexico and the Incan civilization began in South America
A civilization is a culture with organized systems of government, religion, and learning.
The Maya were such successful farmers that they began to grow a surplus, or more food that they needed to feed their own families.
Some Maya began to specialize, or to do only one kind of job.
The Maya developed the method to build tall pyramids.
A pyramid id a building with three or more sides shaped like triangles that slant toward a point at the top.
In the Valley of Mexico, The Aztecs built Tenochtitlan, meaning “near the cactus”.
An empire is a group of lands and peoples ruled by one leader.
Tribute is the payment demanded by rulers from the people they rule.
Slavery is the practice of holding people against their will and taking away their freedom.
The Inca built thousands of miles of roads to link all parts of the empire to their capital at Cusco in present day Peru.
Social Studies 