3 4 3 from sea to shining sea

Fascinating Facts
• Most Americans use nearly seven hundred
pounds of paper each year.

• Thirty-nine percent of things put in landfills
are made of paper and could have been
recycled.

• It takes between five hundred and one thousand
years for just one inch of rich soil to form.

Genre

Nonfiction

Comprehension Skill

Draw Conclusions

Text Features

•
•
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Headings/Subheadings
Map
Time Line
Captions

Scott Foresman Social Studies

ISBN 0-328-14830-X

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by Barbara Bigelow


All people have needs. We need food, clothes,
and a safe place to live. None of these needs
could be met without natural resources. Natural
resources are materials from the earth. Read on
and find out about the valuable resources from
our land from sea to shining sea.

Vocabulary
natural resources
region
physical environment

Write to It!
You have learned about the natural resources
in the United States and how these resources
differ from region to region. Find out which
resources are plentiful in your state. Write
two paragraphs about how people use them.
Be sure to include information about jobs
connected with your state’s natural resources.
Write your paragraphs on a separate

sheet of paper.

landform
climate
communities
fuel
mineral
lumber

Illustration
3 ©Guy Porfirio
Photographs

by Barbara Bigelow

Every effort has been made to secure permission and provide appropriate credit for photographic material. The publisher deeply
regrets any omission and pledges to correct errors called to its attention in subsequent editions.
Unless otherwise acknowledged, all photographs are the property of Scott Foresman, a division of Pearson Education.
ISBN: 0-328-14830-X

Photo locators denoted as follows: Top (T), Center (C), Bottom (B), Left (L), Right (R) Background (Bkgd)

Copyright © Pearson Education, Inc.
All Rights Reserved. Printed in the United States of America. This publication is protected
by Copyright, and permission should be obtained from the publisher prior to any prohibited
reproduction, storage in a retrieval system, or transmission in any form by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or likewise. For information regarding
permission(s), write to: Permissions Department, Scott Foresman, 1900 East Lake Avenue,
Glenview, Illinois 60025.

Opener: ©Wendell Metzen/Index Stock Imagery
2 ©Royalty-Free/Corbis
4 ©Wendell Metzen/Index Stock Imagery
5 ©Corbis
Editorial Offices: Glenview, Illinois • Parsippany, New Jersey • New York, New York
6 ©David R. Frazier Photolibrary, Inc./Alamy Images
7 ©The Granger Collection,
NY Offices: Needham, Massachusetts • Duluth, Georgia • Glenview, Illinois
Sales
8 ©Tom Myers
Coppell, Texas • Sacramento, California • Mesa, Arizona
10 ©Mineral Information Institute
14 ©Peter Skinner/Photo Researchers, Inc.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 V0G1 14 13 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05


What is a natural resource?
Natural resources are useful materials that
come from the earth. They are changed into things
that we use every single day.
The toothpaste you use to brush your teeth
contains sand. Sand is a natural resource. The
paper this book was printed on came from a tree.
Our forests are natural resources.
The gasoline that powers the car or bus you ride
started out as oil. Oil is a natural resource formed
underground. The steel used to make cars started
out as iron, another natural resource.
Even if you walked to school or rode your bike

today, you used natural resources. Tires and the
soles of your shoes are made of rubber that comes
from tree sap or the ground.
Coal is a natural resource.

West region
Northeast region
Midwest region

Southwest region
Southeast region

These are the regions of the United States.

The five regions of the United States are
shown on this map. Notice how each region’s
name matches its placement on the map.

“From sea to shining sea!”
The words “from sea to shining sea” are from
the song “America the Beautiful.” The United
States is the fourth-largest country in the world.
To get from one end of the country to the other,
you would have to travel about three thousand
miles! If you did not make any stops along the
way, it would still take at least two whole days
and two whole nights to drive that far.
2

3

Where did you say that came from?

This region is near the ocean.

The United States is divided into five different
regions. A region is a large land area that has
special features.
The five regions of the United States have very
different physical environments. You can tell
one type of physical environment from another
by observing its landforms and its climate.
Landform is a scientific word for different
features or shapes found on Earth’s surface.
Deserts and mountains are two examples of
landforms. Climate refers to the kind of weather
a place has from year to year.
The regions of the United States look
unbelievably different. You will find mountains
in the West and plains in the Midwest. The
Southwest is very hot and dry all year round. The
states in the Northeast can get very cold and
snowy during the winter. The South can be warm.
4

The United States is rich in natural resources.
The different regions of our country have different
treasures in their soil, rocks, and waters. Let’s
look at a few states and their natural resources.

Communities often develop where natural
resources are found. Oil is one of the natural
resources that attracted lots of attention in the
early 1900s. Oil is a fuel
found beneath the ground.
Fuels provide us with heat,
light, and other forms of
energy. Oil is used to make
the gasoline that powers
cars and other vehicles.
Texas is famous for its
oil. When large underground
supplies of oil were found
in Texas, its population
grew quickly. People
moved there to work in
the oil fields.

This oil well is spewing oil that
has been trapped underground
for millions of years.
5


“California, here I come!”
It was mentioned earlier that communities are
often built in areas where natural resources are
found. That is exactly what happened in 1848
when gold was found in California.
Gold is a very valuable mineral. A mineral is

a natural resource that has never been alive. The
discovery of gold in California caused thousands
of people to journey west and seek their fortunes.
This big westward movement became known as
the Gold Rush.

Idaho potatoes are sold in grocery stores
throughout the United States.

Idaho is a state in the Northwest. Much of its
land is used for farming. Idaho is famous for its
abundant potato crop. Its soil is good for growing
wheat and trees.
The state of Wisconsin is in our nation’s
Midwest. This state has lots of farmland, trees,
and livestock. Livestock are farm animals, such
as cows. Wisconsin has a lot of cows and is
known for its dairy products, such as milk and
cheese. Wisconsin also produces the most paper
in our country.
6

The gold miners were nicknamed “forty-niners” because
the busiest year for gold mining in California was 1849.
7


Can you dig it?
Gold is usually found buried in rock. Sometimes
it is mixed with loose soil. Miners panned for gold

in the Old West by swirling water from muddy
streams in pans to separate the tiny gold flecks
from the dirt.
Later, people dug deep holes called mines in
the earth to search for larger chunks of gold. A
miner’s job was to get the nuggets, or chunks, of
gold out of the mine so that it could be sold.
Many people who took part in the Gold
Rush wanted to find gold for
themselves. Others followed
the crowd looking for different
kinds of work.

Fewer than fifteen thousand settlers lived in
California before the Gold Rush. Between the
discovery of gold in 1848 and the end of the Gold
Rush in 1850, about eighty thousand people
moved there. Soon after, California became this
country’s thirty-first state.
By 1858 the population of California had
grown to 300,000 people. Many of those people
made their living by farming.

Gold is a shiny
yellow mineral.
8

9

“That’s a lovely tree
you are wearing!”

Here is a chart showing some of the different natural
resources used by people in the United States.

What is the first thing you think of when
you hear the word tree? Firewood? Falling
leaves? Lumber at a construction site? Well,
more than five thousand different products are
made from trees, and you might find some of
them rather surprising!
Many medicines come from trees. A fabric called
rayon comes from trees too. Bowling balls, football
helmets, hairspray, paints, tires, cough drops, and
gum are all made from trees.
One of the greatest thing about trees, though,
is that we can replace the ones we cut down
by planting new ones. In other words, they are
renewable resources. If we are careful, trees will
never disappear!

Forests are unbelievable!
Forests are one of our most precious natural
resources. They provide homes for wildlife. They
produce oxygen for us to breathe. They shade us
from the sun’s rays.
The trees in forests are very important in
the building industry too. Lumber comes from
trees. It is wood that is cut into boards for

building. Wood from trees is also used to make
paper and furniture.

10

11


Will our natural resources
last forever?

Slow Cooking Underground

Oil, coal, and natural gas are fuels. We burn
them to produce heat, electricity, and other forms
of energy. All of these fuels were formed millions
of years ago and are buried in the ground.

Oil, coal, and natural gas are formed
underground and usually stay there until
someone digs them up. Let’s take a look at
how oil forms. Coal and natural gas form
essentially the same way.

A Fuel Time Line
1839

1973

The first steam shovel

is invented. This
invention makes it much
easier to dig coal from
the ground.

The price of oil goes way up
in the United States. People
have to wait in lines for
hours at gas stations to fill
up their gas tanks.

1839

12

1930s
Lots of oil is found
in Texas.

1859

1930s

1973

2004
Scientists predict
that plankton,
sunflowers, and
bananas may be the

fuels of the future.

1997

2004

1859

1997

America’s first oil field is
drilled in Pennsylvania.

The gas-electric hybrid car is
introduced in Japan. It can run
on gas or electricity.

13


Water: We Cannot Live Without It

Oil is sometimes called “black gold” because
it is such a valuable natural resource.

Oil takes a really long time to make. In fact, the oil
we use today started forming three hundred million
years ago, even before dinosaurs roamed Earth!
Back then, billions of tiny plants and animals
were living in the salty waters of Earth’s oceans.

When these ocean creatures died and sank to the
bottom of the water, they formed a muddy layer.
Over time, the plant and animal bodies were
buried under more and more layers of mud. All of
those layers created lots of pressure and heat in
the ocean floor. As the mud turned to rock, those
dead plants and animals got “cooked” and turned
into thick, gooey oil.
14

Conserving our natural resources is a very
important job. We already know that our oil
supplies could disappear in another century
or two. Our supply of underground water is
decreasing.
Every time it rains or snows, water soaks into
the ground through soil and cracks in rock. We
dig wells to get to this “groundwater” and use
it for everything from drinking to cooking to
watering crops.
There is a problem, though. Rainwater
cannot soak into hard surfaces, such as roads
and parking lots, so it forms puddles on the
pavement. The water cannot get through
the pavement and get back in the ground,
threatening our groundwater supplies.
Unfortunately, oil, coal, and natural gas are
not like trees. They are not renewable. Once we
find and use all the oil, coal, and natural gas
in Earth’s crust, they will be gone forever. We

cannot “plant” new supplies of these fuels. That
is why it is so important to conserve them.

15


All people have needs. We need food, clothes,
Glossary
and a safe place to live. None of these needs
climate
thewithout
kind of natural
weatherresources.
a place has
from
could
be met
Natural
year to are
yearmaterials from the earth. Read on
resources
communities
places
where people
live, work,
and
find out about
the valuable
resources
from

have
fun
ourand
land
from
seatogether
to shining sea.
fuel a resource that can be used to produce
light, heat, or other
forms of energy
Vocabulary
landform a shape
or part
of the earth’s
natural
resources
surface, such as a mountain or a desert
region
mineral a natural resource that has never
physical environment
been alive
landform
natural resources useful materials that
climate
come from the earth
communities
physical environment
a region’s landforms
and climate
fuel

region a large land
area that has
mineral
special features
lumber

Write to It!
You have learned about the natural resources
in the United States and how these resources
differ from region to region. Find out which
resources are plentiful in your state. Write
two paragraphs about how people use them.
Be sure to include information about jobs
connected with your state’s natural resources.
Write your paragraphs on a separate
sheet of paper.

Illustration
3 ©Guy Porfirio
Photographs
Every effort has been made to secure permission and provide appropriate credit for photographic material. The publisher deeply
regrets any omission and pledges to correct errors called to its attention in subsequent editions.
Unless otherwise acknowledged, all photographs are the property of Scott Foresman, a division of Pearson Education.

ISBN: 0-328-14830-X

Photo locators denoted as follows: Top (T), Center (C), Bottom (B), Left (L), Right (R) Background (Bkgd)

Copyright © Pearson Education, Inc.
All Rights Reserved. Printed in the United States of America. This publication is protected

by Copyright, and permission should be obtained from the publisher prior to any prohibited
reproduction, storage in a retrieval system, or transmission in any form by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or likewise. For information regarding
permission(s), write to: Permissions Department, Scott Foresman, 1900 East Lake Avenue,
Glenview, Illinois 60025.

Opener: ©Wendell Metzen/Index Stock Imagery
2 ©Royalty-Free/Corbis
4 ©Wendell Metzen/Index Stock Imagery
5 ©Corbis
6 ©David R. Frazier Photolibrary, Inc./Alamy Images
7 ©The Granger Collection, NY
8 ©Tom Myers
10 ©Mineral Information Institute
14 ©Peter Skinner/Photo Researchers, Inc.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 V0G1 14 13 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05

16