Coal is collected through surface or underground mining methods. Surface mining uses large machines to remove topsoil and rock layers to access coal deposits underneath. Underground mining involves using elevators to access deep tunnels where miners cut coal. Coal forms over hundreds of millions of years from decaying plant matter and is a non-renewable fossil fuel. Communities depend on the coal industry as it provides around 40% of the world's electricity and is used to produce many goods, but it also harms the environment by releasing pollutants like carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, and nitrogen dioxide which contribute to issues like global warming and acid rain. Better management of the coal industry could involve using pollution control devices and reducing transportation and other resource usage to

1. Finite Times
We live on a planet with finite resources.
How much do you know about coal?
Coal comes from under the ground. People collect it by mining it.
Coal mining uses two methods: surface or underground mining where surface mining is
more dominant method because it is less expensive than the underground mining.
Surface mining uses giant machine. Giant machines move the top layer of soil and
rocks. The other machine collects coal underneath the Earth. Underground mining is
done in deep tunnels. Miners reach the coal by riding elevators. Then they cut the coal
and then it is ready to be sold.
A Grade 4 Publication Summer 2013
How is coal collected & modified?
Coal is a hard, black and lumpy rock. It is a
combustible mostly black sedimentary rock
composed mostly of carbon and hydrocarbons.
It takes 300 million years to make and it is not
easy. It is most abundant fossil fuel and most
cheap fossil fuels. Coal is a non-renewable energy
source.

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Summer 2013
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A Grade 4 Publication
Why do we depend on the coal industry?
Communities depend on this industry because it
creates energy by burning coal in power plants and it
gave us 40% of the world’s electricity. It also gives
us plastic, medicine, steel, concrete, paper, etc.
Because they burn coal at high temperature, it also
heats our house. It is used for transportation.
On and jobs.
How could this resource be managed better?
What is the impact of this industry?
This industry harms the environment because it gives us bad gas and 3 dioxides.
One of it is Carbon dioxide and it makes global warming. Next is Sulphur dioxide
and it makes acidic rain. Last one is Nitrous dioxide and it makes smog.
We could manage this industry of this resource by using scrubbers. Coal
miners must plan and manage extraction, processing, blending and shipping
to meet the increasing demands of their customers, but without ruining the
environment.
We can maybe stop using polluting resources such as coal, oil and fossil fuels.
It pollutes the place we transported it from one place to another.
We could manage this industry by stop many things such as use less
transportation, plastic and other resources. It would be good to the
environment because it is less polluting the environment and we are saving
animal’s shelter.