Social Studies Unit 3 Study Guide

Lesson 1: Our Countrys Land

Geography is the study of Earth and the way people use it.
A LANDFORM is a kind of land with a special shape.
A HILL is a landform that rises above other land around it.
A MOUNTAIN is a very tall rocky hill.
PLAINS are flat land far as the eye can see.
A VALLEY is low land between hills or mountains.
An ISLAND is a landform with water all around it.
A PENINSULA is a landform with water on three sides and one side is
attached to land.
Lesson 2: Our Countrys Water
Bodies of water on our Earth have many shapes and sizes just like landforms.
A RIVER is a stream of water that flows across the land and empties into a
lake or an ocean.
A LAKE is a low spot in the land that is filled up with water and is
surrounded by land.
A GULF is a large body of ocean water that is partly surrounded by land.
Lesson 3: Maps and Globes
A CONTINENT is one of the seven main land areas on Earth.
The continents are EUROPE, ASIA, AFRICA, NORTH AMERICA, SOUTH
AMERICA, AUSTRALIA, and ANTARCTICA.
Most of the Earth is covered by oceans. The four main oceans are Pacific,
Atlantic, Indian, and Arctic oceans.
A MAP and a GLOBE both show landforms and bodies of water. A map is flat
and easy to carry, but a globe shows a better model of the Earth because it is
also round.
There are four CARDINAL DIRECTIONS north, south, east, west. We use
them to help locate things on maps and globes.
The EQUATOR is an imaginary line that divides Earth in half.
Lesson 4: Natural Resources
A natural resource is something found in nature that people can use such as
air, trees, water, and soil. We meet our needs by using these natural
resources.
Water can be used for cleaning, cooking, drinking, traveling, making
electricity, and growing crops.
Air is used to breath and it can also be used to make electricity.
Trees are used to create wood and paper.
A crop is a plant people grow for food and other needs. The soil is used for
crops to grow.

Lesson 5: People and the Land

A forest is a large area of trees that are often cut down to build homes
and plant crops by people.
Fuel is a resource that people mine which can be used for heat and
power.
Climate is the kind of weather a place has over time such as spring being
rainy and chilly and summer being hot.
There are natural hazards such as a tornado strong whirling winds, and
blizzards snowstorms, that can hurt environments.
A flood is when it rains too much and a drought is when it rains too little.
Lesson 6: Caring for Resources
Conservation is saving resources to make them last longer.
We can conserve resources by recycling something old into
something new again.
We can also try to reduce POLLUTION. Pollution is when our air, land,
or water resources get dirty.