Natural Resources Science Games

In this series of games, your students will learn about renewable and nonrenewable resources, how we use them, how they are distributed, and how they get replenished — or don’t. The Natural Resources learning objective — based on NGSS and state standards — delivers improved student engagement and academic performance in your classroom, as demonstrated by research.

Scroll down for a preview of this learning objective’s games and the concepts they drive home.

Concepts Covered

Everything humans use — from food to clothing to cars to buildings — comes from materials found on Earth known as natural resources. Water, plants, animals, soil, rocks, minerals, oil, gas, air, wind, and sunlight are all examples of natural resources.

Some natural resources are renewable, which means as we use them, they can be replaced quickly, within a human lifetime. Sunlight, wind, plants, and animals are all renewable resources.

Others are nonrenewable and exhaustible, so we can run out of them and they won’t replenish in our lifetime. For example, fossil fuels like oil and gasoline take millions of years to form, so when we exhaust them as a resource, we will not be able to use them again.

Some resources are nonrenewable but also cannot be used up, so they are inexhaustible. Water, rocks, and minerals all go through natural cycles but cannot be destroyed or created, making them nonrenewable, inexhaustible resources.

Different places are home to different natural resources. Geographic features and climate determine what kind of plants and animals can exist in an area, as well as how much water, wind, and sunlight that area gets.

Geologic history also affects natural resources. Oil and gas come from certain kinds of fossils, and other rocks and minerals depend on very specific processes in order to form.

Even humans can determine where natural resources exist — or, more often, where they don’t exist. We can cause deforestation by cutting too many trees, extinction by hunting too many animals, or depletion of minerals by mining.

A preview of each game in the learning objective is found below.

You can access all of the games on Legends of Learning for free, forever, with a teacher account. A free teacher account also allows you to create playlists of games and assignments for students and track class progress. Sign up for free today!