1. Finite Times
We live on a planet with finite resources.
How much do you know about Coal?
?
______ comes from….
People collect it by…
Once it has been gathered, it is….(describe what happens at the plant)
A Grade 4 Publication Summer 2013
How is coal collected & modified?
Underground mining collects coal. Coal is collected on a surface mining or
underground mining. Once it is collected the top layer of the soil and rocks is
put back. For underground miners a deep tunnels are build in the ground.
Miners reach coal by riding elevators into the tunnels. If the coal is really big
it can be broken to a more smaller size.
Coal is a hard lumpy black or
brown rock. It is combustible,
which means it can burn. It can be
ignited and burned to produce
energy. Coal is made up of
complex elements including sulfur,
carbon, oxygen, hydrogen and
nitrogen, as well small quantities
aluminum, zirconium and many
other minerals. Anthracite is a
really hard coal.

2. ;
Summer 2013
2
A Grade 4 Publication
Why do we depend on the coal industry?
This is a very valuable resource because coal is used for pencils and the most important thing we use
it for is electricity.
Communities depend on this industry because coal makes electricity and we use electricity for
almost everything. It makes electricity by being burned at the power plants.
How could this resource be managed
better?
What is the impact of this industry?
This is industry is not sustainable because the world uses more then 5.3 billions tons every year, and it
will soon run out.
This industry also harms the environment because coal is sometimes called a “dirty” energy source.
This is because when coal is burned it makes global warming.
We could reduce our use of this resource by recycling metal and by power plants that we use
coal must now use scrubbers to clean out the most of the sulphur from the smoke that is
made by burning coal.
Alternatively, we could use wood because coal makes metal and metal is used to make
furniture and wood can make it too.