Resources from living things I

Basic Science JSS3 Second term

Sub-theme: learning about our environment

WEEK 1

Resources from living things I

Performance Objectives

The student should be able to:

1. Identify resources from living things.
2. Name the sources of these resources.

Content

Resources from living things

Resources are useful things we derive from living or non-living things. These living things are plants and animals. Thus, the resources from plants and animals include cotton, hemp, pineapple, milk, cheese, eggs, butter, salami cold meat, shrubs, pumpkin leaves etc.

Resources from plants

These are crops we grow from our leaves, fruits stem, and roots we can identify four major types of plant resources which are food crop, crop for textiles, wood crops (plants) and medicinal plants.

Food crops

1. Leafy vegetables: these are plants grown from their leaves. They are either cooked or eaten fresh as salads. They provide us with minerals (calcium and iron) and vitamins (particularly vitamin A and C) which our body needs. They include lettuce, cabbage, bitter leaf, pumpkin leaf etc.
2. Fruits: they include mango, orange, pineapple, apple, lemons, guava etc. they provide the body with vitamins and minerals.
3.  Seeds: they include maize, beans, millet, rice, barley, wheat etc.

Crops for textiles

These are crops that are used for making clothes, ropes, paper etc. They are also known as fibre crops and they include:

Cotton

Cotton is plant fibre obtained from the Cotton plant. It is a tropical plant which is mainly grown in regions having black soil and warm conditions.

Cotton is a flowering plant, which belongs to the genus Gossypium and the family Malvaceae. The largest cotton-producing states in India Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Punjab, and Rajasthan.

The cotton fibres are obtained from the seeds of the cotton plant. It is known as the fabric of life, as it is less of cost, most common type of fabric, easily available, extremely durable, easy fabric to take care of and good for our environment. It is widely used worldwide to make different clothing like shirts, trousers, and other materials.

Jute

Jute is a long, soft, shiny fibre obtained from vegetables.

Jute fibres have been an integral part of the culture of West Bengal, and some portions of Bangladesh. They are mainly composed of cellulose and lignin. Thus it is also called lingo-cellulosic fibre. It is the most affordable natural fibres and has a variety of uses. It is used to make jute bags, sacks, coarse clothes, slippers, curtains, chairs, carpets, table, and floor mats, etc.

Coir

Coir is the naturally produced plant fibres extracted from the coconut plant. This coir fibre is mainly produced from the coconut husks and is typically used for making floor mats, brushes and gunny bags or sacks and ropes.

Hemp

Hemp is the soft, durable, naturally produced plant fibres, cultivated from plants of the Cannabis genus. In modern times, these plants were cultivated for industrial purposes including biodegradable plastics, construction, food, fuel, paper, textiles, pharmaceuticals, etc. It is one of the fastest-growing plants and was one of the first plants to be spun into fibre about 10,000 years ago. Even in today the demand for this product is very high and is used to make ropes, sacks etc.

Wood crops (plants)

Woody plants are plants that have hard stems (thus the term, "woody") and that have buds that survive above ground in winter. The best-known examples are trees and shrubs (bushes). These are commonly broken down further into the deciduous and evergreen categories.

The opposite of "woody plants" is "herbaceous" plants. The latter die back to the ground in cold climates during the winter. Their brown or tan stalks may remain to stand, but they are lifeless. However, if they are perennial, their underground plant parts will live on, promising the plants' return, come spring. Woody plants are used for making furniture, papers, building houses etc.

Medicinal plants

Medicinal plants are defined as those plants that are commonly used in treating and preventing specific ailments and diseases and that are generally considered to be harmful to humans. These plants are either “wild plant species” those growing spontaneously in self-maintaining populations in natural or semi-natural ecosystems and could exist independently of direct human actions or the contrasting “Domesticated plants species” those that have arisen through human actions such as selection or breeding and depend on management for their existence. Examples of medicinal plants include carica papaya (paw-paw leaves), daguro, kwakwani etc.