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NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF ENGINEERING

ENGLISH I

Environmental resources

1. A resource is anything we get from the living and nonliving environment to meet our
needs and wants. 2. Material resources are those whose quality can be measured. 3.
Some, such as fresh air, fresh water, fertile soil, and naturally growing edible plants, are
directly available for use.

4. Most material resources, such as petroleum and modern crops are not directly available
and their supplies are limited. 5. They become resources only when we use our ingenuity
to make them available at affordable price. 6. Petroleum, for example, was a mysterious
fluid until we learn how to find it, extract it and refine it into gasoline, home heating oil
and other products. 7. On our short human time scale, we classify material resources as
nonrenewable, perpetual and renewable.

8. Nonrenewable sources exist in a fixed amount in various places and have the potential
for renewal by geological, physical and chemical processes taking place over hundreds of
millions to billions of years. 9. Examples are copper, aluminum, coal and oil. 10. We
classify them as nonrenewable because we are extracting and using them at a much faster
rate than the geological time scale on which they were formed. 11. As a result, they
become economically depleted to the point where it costs too much to get what is left.

12. Some of these materials can be reuse to extent supplies –cooper, aluminum, iron and
glass for example. 13. Reuse involves using a resource over and over in the same form.
14. However, some resources like fossil fuel cannot be recycle or reuse because of when
they are burned, the useful energy in them is converted to waste heat and exhaust gasses
that can pollute the atmosphere and the soil, water and wildlife.

15. A renewal resource such as solar energy is virtually inexhaustible on a human time
scale and it is important for lifestyle. 16. A potentially renewal source theoretically can be
indefinitely used without reducing the available supply because it is replaced more rapidly
through natural processes. 17. Examples are trees, grass, wild animals, fresh surface water
in lakes and streams, fresh air and fertile soil. 18. The highest rate at which a potentially
resource can be used without reducing its available is called its sustainable yield. 19. If
this natural replacement rate is exceeded, the available potential resource begins to
shrink—a process known as environmental degradation.
Exercises:

a) Find definitions in the text.

1. In sentence(s) _________ there is a nominal definition. Divide it into its parts:


Class:
Characteristic:
Marker:
Term:
2. In sentence(s) _________ there is a nominal definition. Divide it into its parts:
Class:
Characteristic:
Marker:
Term:

I. Answer the questions in Spanish.

1. What is a resource?

2. Why fossil fuel cannot be reuse?

II. Write the equivalent in Spanish for the following words.

1. Fresh water ________________________


2. Fertile soil _________________________
3. Wildlife ___________________________
4. Edibles plants ______________________

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