Download People and the Environment

9/1/16
Lesson 1-5 Notes: People and the
Environment
Ms. Walsh
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.
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.
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.
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.
Changing the Environment