Identify Whether Materials are Natural or Man-made

Everything around us in the world is made of a material.

The materials we use either come from the natural world and we make them into something, or we make them completely.

If they come from the natural world, we say that they are a natural material.

Gold is mined from the ground. It is made into jewellery, so we say that the ring is made of a natural material.

If we make them completely, we say that they are a man-made material.

Glass is made in a furnace from a mixture of lots of different materials and then made into different objects like glasses, jugs, windows etc.

We say that glass is a man-made material.

 It is sometimes tricky because even the natural materials are then made into something.

Keep in mind whether the material started off in the natural world or in a factory.

In this activity, you can practise identifying whether a material is a natural one or a man-made one.