Human Impact on Earth

Have students sort the resources before they look at the pie chart so they can add the percents by group. On the creek reading, have them mark the cause and each change in the text.

Read about an algae bloom in made-up Willow Creek, then use sample oxygen data to judge the fix. The directions on the page read: Read the text and study the table. Then answer the questions on page 2. An answer key is included.

Yes, both. We made it for 6th Grade Earth systems, and the page works the same whether it lands on a kitchen table or a center rotation. At home, most families go through it together and talk the answers out loud, and that talking is where most of the learning happens with resources and human impact. In class it runs well as independent work while you pull a small group. Print one copy or thirty, whichever the day needs.

The sheet lists sunlight, wind, moving water and geothermal energy, which will not run out. Trees and fish are renewable if people do not use them faster than they grow back, and soil is renewable only when protected.

Fertilizer that washes into a creek feeds algae, which can grow into a thick bloom. When the algae die, bacteria break them down and use up much of the oxygen in the water, so fish cannot get enough.

Buffer strips are wide bands of grass and shrubs between fields and a creek. The roots soak up water and fertilizer before runoff reaches the creek.