Natural Resource Crossword Puzzle

Print a criss-cross vocabulary crossword on natural resources: renewable and nonrenewable, fossil fuels, minerals, water, soil and conservation.

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Natural Resources Crossword

Read each clue and write the answer in the squares that start at its number, one letter in each square.

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Answer key: Natural Resources Crossword

1FI2SH3CO4T5FOSSILINL6DAMS7RB8RENEWABLERCRVY9SAC10ORETLL11MINERALOR12MINING

Across 1 FISH · 5 FOSSIL · 6 DAM · 8 RENEWABLE · 10 ORE · 11 MINERAL · 12 MINING

Down 2 SOIL · 3 CONSERVATION · 4 TIMBER · 7 RECYCLE · 9 SOLAR

Next step Find environmental science words in a word searchPractice natural resources vocabulary

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Renewable Resources and Energy 22

  • Biofuel Fuel made over a short time span, not by the very slow processes underground
  • Biomass People's primary source of energy through most of history, burned for heat and light
  • Dam Structure that holds a built lake in place
  • Flow ___ resource: another name for one that replaces what is used
  • Geothermal Word for energy that combines heat from the planet's formation and from radioactive decay
  • Hydroelectric Word for electricity generated from the motion of rivers
  • Hydropower Also called water power; it supplies 15% of the world's electricity
  • Inexhaustible Unable to be used up, as sunshine virtually is
  • Kinetic ___ energy: the energy of motion, which a bladed machine converts
  • Panel Flat device made up of multiple modules that face the sun
  • Photovoltaic Word, shortened to PV, for cells made of semiconducting materials
  • Renewable Word for a resource that natural processes restore as it is used
  • Replenish Fill up again, as nature constantly does with some energy sources
  • Reservoir Enlarged lake held back by a wall across a river
  • Solar ___ energy: the kind available only while the sun is shining
  • Sunlight Resource that arrives from space every day
  • Tidal ___ power: energy harnessed from the rise and fall of the sea
  • Turbine Water ___: what may drive a riverside mill in place of a wheel
  • Watermill Riverside works whose machinery for grinding or hammering runs on the current
  • Wave ___ power: energy captured from the heaving surface of the sea
  • Wind Resource that blows day after day, a continuous supply of energy
  • Wood Source of nearly all of America's energy until the mid-1800s

Fossil Fuels and Other Nonrenewables 24

  • Anthracite Black fuel with the highest heating value; America mines it in one corner of one state
  • Bituminous Word for the most abundant grade of black fuel in the United States
  • Carbon Element that the black fuel mostly consists of
  • Coal Solid fuel used to generate electricity and in making steel
  • Extract Take out of the earth, as people do with limited supplies
  • Finite ___ resource: one that cannot be replaced as quickly as it is consumed
  • Fission Splitting of atoms to create heat
  • Fossil ___ fuel: America's primary kind of energy source by the early 1900s
  • Gas Natural ___: fuel found in geological formations and moved through pipes
  • Kerosene Combustible liquid, also known as paraffin, derived from crude
  • Lignite Crumbly, moist fuel with the lowest energy content of its family
  • Methane Hydrocarbon that is the primary part of one fuel found in geological formations
  • Nonrenewable Word for a resource whose supply is limited and takes a very long time to form
  • Nuclear Word for a power plant whose fuel is a metal found in rocks
  • Peat Bog material of which the world holds about 4 trillion cubic meters
  • Pennsylvania State whose northeast has all the American mines of the top-grade black fuel
  • Petroleum Crude oil: a yellowish-black liquid mixture found in geological formations
  • Pipeline System of connected tubes for carrying a liquid over long distances
  • Pressure With heat, what turned buried plants into fuel
  • Refinery Industrial site where crude is made into gasoline, among other things
  • Seams Layers in which the black fuel forms
  • Swampy Wet and boggy, like the woodlands where the plants of today's black fuel grew
  • Uranium Metal found in rocks all over the world, whose atoms are split for heat
  • Well Hole bored into the earth to bring crude to the surface

Minerals, Metals and Mining 26

  • Abiotic Word for a resource from non-living material, such as metals
  • Bauxite Rock that is the world's main supply of two metals, one of them gallium
  • Clay Longest-known material for ceramics, plastic when wet
  • Copper Soft, malleable and ductile metal with very high thermal conductivity
  • Diamond Gem that is a crystal form of the element the black fuel mostly consists of
  • Excavate Dig out, as workers do with stone at a pit
  • Gold Soft, dense metal that is element number 79
  • Gravel Loose aggregation of stone fragments
  • Gypsum Soft, widely mined sulfate used as a fertilizer
  • Inorganic Not organic; part of the Geological Survey's definition of what stone is made of
  • Iron Metal of steel; its source deposits vary from dark gray to rusty red
  • Lithium Metal more than three-quarters of whose production goes into batteries
  • Mineral Natural element or compound with a characteristic crystal form
  • Mining Extraction work required for most materials that cannot be farmed
  • Nickel Silvery-white lustrous metal with a slight golden tinge, symbol Ni
  • Ore Natural deposit in which a metal is gathered above background levels
  • Phosphate Calcium ___: compound, in the form of apatite, in a rock dug for fertilizer
  • Potash Mined and manufactured compounds that hold potassium in a form that dissolves in water
  • Quarry Site, in the open, for taking out limestone and other earth materials
  • Rare ___-earth elements: a set of 17 soft, silvery-white heavy metals
  • Reclamation Mine ___: restoring dug-up land to a working or usable state
  • Salt Table ___: the granulated form used in food
  • Sand Granular material defined by the size of its particles, not their makeup
  • Silver Soft, white, lustrous metal, number 47 among the elements
  • Smelting Step of extractive metallurgy that wins a metal with heat
  • Zinc Slightly brittle metal with a shiny blue-whitish look, number 30 among the elements

Water, Soil and Living Resources 27

  • Aquifer Underground store of water that seeping rain tops up
  • Arable Word for land that can be plowed and planted
  • Atmosphere The air as a whole, named in the list of Earth's natural resources
  • Biotic Word for a resource that originates from the biosphere and has life
  • Cotton Living resource that grows in a boll, a protective case around seeds
  • Crops What a field is plowed to grow
  • Desalination Artificial process that turns seawater into fresh water
  • Erosion Surface process that carries ground material from one place to another
  • Fauna Word paired with flora in the list of resources that have life
  • Fish Swimming animal, a living resource of rivers and seas
  • Glaciers With icecaps, frozen places where some of Earth's water is kept
  • Groundwater Water often pumped out far faster than its very slow natural refilling
  • Irrigation Controlled watering of farmland, landscape plantings and lawns
  • Livestock Farm animals, counted as a resource from the living world
  • Oceans They hold about 96.5 percent of all Earth's water
  • Pasture Land used for grazing
  • Recharge Top up; rain soaking down does this for underground stores of water
  • Rubber Material also known as caucho, caoutchouc or India ___
  • Seepage Slow leaking, by which underground water feeds river beds
  • Soil Also commonly called earth: the stuff that supports the life of plants
  • Timber Lumber, in British, Australian and New Zealand English
  • Vapor Water ___: the form in which water exists in the air
  • Vegetation All the plants of a place, counted among Earth's natural resources
  • Watershed Another word for a catchment area or drainage basin
  • Wetland Semi-aquatic place whose ground cover stays saturated for years or part of each year
  • Wildlife Wild animals, counted among Earth's natural resources
  • Wool Coat of a sheep, a goat or a camelid, used as a textile

Using and Saving Resources 21

  • Allocation Sharing out; that of resources can be at the center of economic and political conflict
  • Commons Tragedy of the ___: the idea of a shared resource overused at a cost to the community
  • Conservation Sparing, careful use of what nature provides, so that it lasts
  • Consumption Using up; some resources cannot be replaced at a pace that keeps up with it
  • Depletion Resource ___: what occurs when one is consumed faster than it can be replaced
  • Extinction End of a species, which the movement to protect nature works to prevent
  • Feedstock Another name for an unprocessed material that industry starts from
  • Habitats Homes of wild species, which the movement to protect nature maintains and restores
  • Harvest Gather or cut, as with trees; done with care, the trees count as self-restoring
  • Heritage Natural ___: what natural resources are part of, for all humanity
  • Overfishing Removing aquatic animals at a rate greater than they can breed back
  • Product Every man-made one is composed of natural resources
  • Raw ___ material: a basic one from which finished things are produced
  • Recycle Turn waste materials into new materials and objects
  • Reforestation Bringing back woodlands that have been destroyed or damaged
  • Reserves Nature ___: areas in which natural resources are protected
  • Reuse Middle one of three R's: give a thing another turn of duty
  • Rotation Growing a series of different plants on the same field, season after season
  • Scarcity Economists' word for the fact that only a limited amount exists
  • Sustainable Able to continue the same over a long period of time
  • Yield The amount of a resource that can be taken without damaging it

How this list was compiled: Clues written for this site for grades 4 to 9, in six sets. Facts were checked against the energy pages of the U.S. Energy Information Administration (eia.gov), the Water Science School and rock pages of the U.S. Geological Survey (usgs.gov) and English Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0) in October 2026. Renewable and Nonrenewable never share a puzzle, because one word holds the other. Licence: own work

How it works

This natural resource crossword puzzle prints on Letter or A4, answer key included. The first puzzle has 12 basic words, among them Renewable, Fossil, Mineral, Timber, Conservation and Soil. Nonrenewable is an answer in the fossil fuels set.

Read the full guide

Five sets after the basics

Renewable Resources and Energy has Hydropower, Geothermal, Biomass and Tidal. Fossil Fuels and Other Nonrenewables has Petroleum, Anthracite, Uranium and Lignite. Minerals, Metals and Mining has Bauxite, Smelting, Quarry and Lithium. Water, Soil and Living Resources has Aquifer, Groundwater, Watershed and Livestock. Using and Saving Resources has Sustainable, Depletion, Scarcity and Reforestation.

Figures a class can check

Three figures come straight from the sources: Oceans hold about 96.5 percent of Earth's water, Hydropower supplies 15 percent of the world's electricity, and Anthracite, the top grade of coal, is mined in the United States only in northeastern Pennsylvania.

  • Print the renewable set and the fossil fuels set on facing days, then have the class sort the answers of both into two columns.

Questions and answers

Is there a natural resources crossword with an answer key?

Yes. Each print ends with the answer key on a separate sheet, showing the completed grid and the answers in clue order. It costs nothing and asks for no sign-up.

What grade is the natural resource crossword puzzle for?

Natural Resource Basics suits grades 4 to 6, with answers such as Soil, Coal, Wind and Timber. The five themed sets suit grades 6 to 9, with answers such as Photovoltaic and Bituminous. These bands are our judgment, not a published standard.

What is the difference between renewable and nonrenewable resources?

Natural processes restore a renewable resource as it is used: sunlight, wind, and timber when it is harvested with care. A nonrenewable resource, such as coal, oil or a metal ore, cannot be replaced at a pace that keeps up with its use.

What are examples of natural resources?

Sunlight, air, water, land, minerals, plants and wildlife are all natural resources. So are the things people take from them: timber, metal ores, petroleum and most forms of energy.

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