People and the Environment

1. People and the Environment Chapter 1, Lesson 5

2. Lesson Objectives • Explain how physical features affect human settlement patterns. • Describe ways that people use the land and affect the environment.

3. Vocabulary • Land use • Natural resource • Renewable resource • Nonrenewable resource • Modify • Irrigation • Efficiency

4. Patterns of Settlement • 300 million people live throughout the United States in different areas. • The physical features of an area, such as climate, soil, water, and landforms, can affect how people move, travel, and where they settle. • Today, people live in areas that were once considered not desirable places to live because of inventions and irrigation. • People live in cities that spread out over large areas, which are often found along transportation routes such as rivers, lakes, or a coast.

5. Patterns of Land Use • Landforms, bodies of water, climate, and vegetation can influence land use, or how the land is used. • In the United States, about half of the land is used for farmland, which makes up areas in the Coastal Plain, on the Interior Plains, and in valleys in the West. • Much of the mining in the United States takes place in the mountain regions. • Cities also take up large areas of the United States, where most of the land is used for housing, transportation, and business.

6. Natural Resources • A natural resource is something found in nature that people can use. Natural resources include soil, plants, water, and minerals. • There are two kinds of natural resources: • Renewable resources – resources that can be made again by people or nature (water, trees, and sources of energy such as light and wind). • Nonrenewable resources – resources that cannot be made again by people, or resources that would take thousands of years for nature to replace (ores, minerals, oils, and gas). • People use nonrenewable resources to heat their homes and fuel their cars. • Today, people have started to conserve, or save, the resources for future generations.

7. Changing the Environment • Americans modify, or change, the land they live on. They modify the land so that they are able to live on it and meet their needs. • Irrigation is the use of canals, ditches, or pipes to move water. • Irrigation allows farmers to grow crops in dry areas, such as the Southwest. • People cut down trees to make lumber and paper products and also to make room for settlement. • Many people today understand they need to use natural resources carefully so the resources do not run out. • Engineers have learned much about energy efficiency, or using less energy, to do the same tasks.

8. Changing the Environment