Natural Resources vs Man Made Worksheet 5th Grade

All 24 words

Natural 12

clay Clay is a fine-grained earth that can be shaped while wet.
coal Coal is a black rock. It began as plants that were buried and pressed for millions of years.
cotton Cotton is the fluffy fiber that a cotton plant grows around its seeds.
crude oil Crude oil is oil pumped from under the ground that no refinery has yet changed.
iron ore Iron ore is rock that holds enough iron to be worth mining.
limestone Limestone is a rock that often forms in the sea from built-up shells and coral.
natural gas Natural gas is a fuel found underground, often in the same places as oil.
sand Sand is rock worn down to fine grains. It forms beaches and deserts.
soil Soil is a mixture of minerals, the remains of living things, water and air. Plants grow in it.
water Water comes down as rain and is found in rivers, lakes and seas.
wood Wood is the hard part of the trunk and branches of a tree.
wool Wool is the hair of sheep and of a few other animals, such as goats.

Show all 24 words (12 more)

Man-made 12

brick A brick is a block of clay, shaped and then hardened.
cardboard Cardboard is thick, stiff paper, so it starts as wood too.
cement Cement is a powder made by heating limestone and clay.
concrete Concrete is cement mixed with water, sand and gravel. It hardens as it sets.
gasoline Gasoline is a fuel that refineries make from crude oil.
nylon Nylon is a synthetic fiber: people make it by chemistry, and it grows on no plant or animal.
paper Most paper is made from wood that has been broken down to a pulp, then drained and dried in sheets.
plastic Most plastic is made in factories from chemicals that come from natural gas and crude oil.
plywood Plywood is a board of thin layers of wood glued together.
porcelain Porcelain is a hard white ceramic made by firing clay at a very high heat.
steel Steel is mostly iron, with a small amount of carbon. The iron is taken out of iron ore.
window glass Window glass is made by melting sand with a few other ingredients.

How this list was compiled: Word list chosen for this site on 2026-10-12. A natural resource is drawn from nature and used with few changes; man-made means created by people (the English Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/, whose text is under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license: Natural resource and Natural material; Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org/: natural resource and man-made; BBC Bitesize, What are natural and agricultural resources?, https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/articles/zqwpsk7). Each word stands under one heading only, and what it is or is made from was checked that day at its Wikipedia article (Water, Soil, Wood, Cotton, Wool, Sand, Clay, Coal, Petroleum, Natural gas, Iron ore, Limestone, Plastic, Glass, Paper, Plywood, Brick, Porcelain, Steel, Gasoline, Cement, Portland cement, Concrete, Nylon, Synthetic fiber and Cardboard) and at its Wiktionary entry; nylon and concrete rest on Wikipedia alone. The U.S. Energy Information Administration was read for coal, crude oil, natural gas, gasoline and plastic (Energy Explained, https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/; How much oil is used to make plastic?, https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=34&t=6). For the answers under the tool: the Wikipedia articles Obsidian, Natural rubber, Synthetic rubber, Renewable resource and Non-renewable resource. Left out: words that can be natural or man-made (glass as a bare word, rubber) and things made of a natural material (a wooden chair, a cotton shirt). Licence: own work

How it works

This natural resources vs man made worksheet for 5th grade prints twelve materials, such as clay, crude oil, steel and window glass, above two headings, Natural and Man-made. A key is the last page.

Read the full guide

What each man-made material starts as

In the list under the tool, every man-made row names the natural resource behind it: window glass starts as sand, steel as iron ore, gasoline as crude oil, most plastic as crude oil or natural gas, cement as limestone, and paper, plywood and cardboard as wood. Pupils who finish early can pair them.

Things left off the sheet

A wooden chair and a cotton shirt are made by people out of a natural material, so a class can argue for either heading. The sheet keeps to materials, and each one has a single right answer.

For your own sort, type one heading per line in the box: Natural: wood, sand.

Questions and answers

What is the difference between natural and man-made resources?

A natural resource comes from nature and is used with little change: water, soil, wood, coal. A man-made resource is something people produce, such as steel, paper or plastic. Every man-made product is made of natural resources in the end.

Is glass natural or man-made?

Nearly all glass is man-made, by melting sand and cooling it. A natural glass exists too: obsidian forms when lava from a volcano cools quickly. That is why the word on the sheet is window glass.

Is rubber natural or man-made?

It can be either, so it is not on the sheet. Natural rubber comes from latex, the milky sap tapped from the rubber tree. Synthetic rubber is made in factories from chemicals that come from crude oil.

What are renewable and nonrenewable natural resources?

A renewable resource is replaced by nature within a lifetime: wood, cotton, wool, fresh water. A nonrenewable one forms far too slowly to be replaced once it is used: coal, crude oil, natural gas and metal ores such as iron ore.