Lesson video

Hi, geographers.

My name's Miss Hoggett, and I'm really excited you're here to learn some geography with me today.

I'm sure if you try your best, you're going to be absolutely fantastic.

Don't worry too much if you haven't studied this topic before.

I'm here to help you every step of the way.

The title for today's lesson is Natural Resources and the Economy in the Middle East.

And this sits within the unit The Middle East: How Have Natural Resources Changed the Middle East? Our learning outcome for today is that I can explain how natural resources affect economies in the Middle East.

And to help us with today's lesson, we have a number of keywords that are going to be really useful for us.

They include imports, exports, distribution, economy, and diversify.

Imports are goods or services that a country buys from other countries.

Exports are goods or services that a country sells to other countries.

Distribution is how something is spread out across a geographic area.

Economy is the way a country produces, uses, and manages money, jobs, goods, and services.

And diversify means to add variety or do something differently.

So imports, exports, distribution, economy, and diversify are the keywords that are going to help us through today's lesson.

This lesson is split into three learning cycles.

The first one, distribution of resources.

The second, resources and the economy.

And the third, economic diversification.

We're going to start with our first learning cycle now, distribution of resources.

Natural resources are those that come from Earth without human influence and can be used for human needs.

Some natural resources are renewable, meaning they can be replaced naturally, like wind or forests, while others are non-renewable, meaning they could run out if we use them too quickly, including things like coal, oil, and gas.

Natural resources are essential for energy, food, materials, and everyday life.

Examples of natural resources can be seen here.

We could be referring to oil, gas, water, minerals, sunlight, vegetation, or metals.

All of these are natural resources that shape our day-to-day lives and are really important to all of us.

Now, the way these resources are spread out is not even around the world.

And the way something is spread out is referred to as distribution.

Some countries are richer in certain resources than others.

The map that we can see here shows the oil-producing countries in the world, so we're focusing on just one resource in this map.

The darker the colour, the more oil is produced there.

So we can see places like the USA, Saudi Arabia, and Russia produce more oil than places like Australia or the United Kingdom.

And it varies all around the world.

So we can see lots of countries there all producing different amounts of oil.

The countries that have the grey lines across them means that we don't have the data on them.

Andeep says, "We call this an uneven distribution." Absolutely spot on.

So let's check your understanding.

Which of these is not a natural resource? Is it a, minerals, b, sunlight, or c, plastic? Pause the video and have a go at answering this question.

Well done if you said c, plastic.

We know that minerals and sunlight are a natural resource that come from the Earth, whereas plastic is not something that's natural.

Well done.

Now if we focus in on the Middle East, the Middle East is a region that's important for two key natural resources, oil and gas.

Countries such as Kuwait, Iran, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia have large reserves of oil and gas, which they export globally.

On the map, we can see the location of oil and gas reserves around the Middle East.

The green areas are the oil fields and the pink areas are the gas fields.

So we can see they cover vast areas of the Middle East.

In 2023, Saudi Arabia was the second largest producer of oil in the world.

The USA was the leader and produced 19.

4 millions of barrels of oil per day.

Saudi Arabia then came next with 11.

4 million barrels per day.

And Russia comes in third place, with 11.

1 millions of barrels of oil produced per day.

True or false, Saudi Arabia was the largest producer of oil in the world in 2023.

Pause the video and have a go at answering this question.

Well done if you said false.

We know that Saudi Arabia is the second largest producer of oil in the world.

The USA is the largest producer of oil in the world.

And Russia came in third place.

So well done if you got that correct.

Now, despite the Middle East producing nearly 50% of global oil in 2023, there's an uneven distribution even across the region.

Saudi Arabia produced nearly 12 million barrels of oil a day, whereas Iran, Iraq, and the UAE produced just over 4 million barrels of oil a day.

On the other end of the scale, we had Yemen and Egypt producing less than 2 million barrels of oil a day.

So even within the Middle East region, there is an uneven distribution of oil production.

So it's a good example of how our natural resources aren't even around the whole world.

So we're going to practise what you've learned in learning cycle one.

And I would like you to use the maps to describe the distribution of oil and gas resources in the Middle East.

So you have your choropleth map there showing the colours of oil production per day, and you also have your map showing the oil and gas fields across the Middle East.

So referring to both of those, I'd like you to describe the distribution of oil and gas resources in the Middle East world.

Well done for giving that a really good go, geographers.

Let's check your answers.

Now, you might have included something similar to this.

The two maps show the distribution of oil and gas resources in the Middle East.

The first map shows that Saudi Arabia was the biggest producer of oil in the Middle East in 2023, producing just under 12 million barrels of oil a day.

To the north and east of Saudi Arabia are Iraq and Iran, who produced just over 4 million barrels of oil a day.

This is the same in the United Arab Emirates.

Countries to the west of Saudi Arabia, such as Egypt, and to the south, such as Yemen, produce less than 2 million barrels of oil a day.

The map shows that the production of oil across the Middle East is uneven.

On the second map, we can see where the oil and gas fields are.

The green areas show oil fields and the pink areas show gas fields.

There are many oil fields in eastern Saudi Arabia, near the Persian Gulf.

Iraq, especially around Basra in the south-east, also has many oil fields.

In Iran, oil fields are found mainly in the south-west, while gas fields are spread across the north-east and central Iran.

Overall, oil resources are mostly found in eastern Saudi Arabia, southern Iraq, and south-western Iran, while gas fields are spread more across Iran, especially to the north and east.

Well done, geographers.

I'm sure you've written a brilliant answer and have done fantastically.

We're now at the end of learning cycle one and ready to move on to learning cycle two, resources and the economy.

To overcome the uneven distribution of resources around the world, countries can trade their resources.

Countries that have a resource can export it.

This means sell it to other countries.

Whereas countries that don't have a resource they really need can import it.

This means to buy it in from other countries.

I remember the difference between exports and imports because exports starts with the same letters as the word exit, so it's leaving a place, whereas import starts with the same letter as the word in, so it's coming into a place.

True or false, importing means to sell goods and services to another country.

Pause the video and have a go answering this question.

Well done if you said false.

We know that to export means to exit and therefore to sell goods and services to other countries.

To import means to come in, so to buy goods and services in from other countries.

Well done for giving that a really good go.

Countries who export a resource can earn a lot of money from it.

Saudi Arabia had a GDP of 1.

07 trillion US dollars in 2023.

It's estimated that just under 50% of this was derived from oil exports.

So oil made Saudi Arabia huge amounts of money in 2023.

In the image, we can see Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia.

Countries in the Middle East who don't have a significant access to oil reserves often have a lower GDP.

For example, Yemen had a GDP of 21.

16 billion US dollars in 2023, and Jordan had a GDP of 50.

97 billion US dollars in 2023.

So we can see that's significantly below Saudi Arabia's 1.

07 trillion US dollars.

The uneven distribution of oil in the Middle East leads to inequality and a development gap within the region.

Trading natural resources impacts the economy in a place.

The economy is the way a country produces, uses, and manages money, jobs, goods, and services.

To visualise these patterns, such as those associated with oil trade around the world, geographers sometimes use what we call a proportional symbols map.

This is a map where places are overlaid with different sized symbols.

The bigger the symbol, the higher the value it's representing.

For example, if we had a circle this size, it would represent one.

Whereas if we had a bigger circle on the same map, that would represent two, and then three, and then four.

So we can see how the size changes and therefore the value that that represents changes with it.

Here we have an example of a proportional symbols map showing some of the global oil production and consumption of oil.

So consumption is outlined in pink with a green filling, whereas production has a white filling.

And we can see how those circles vary across the map on the screen.

If we look at this in more detail, we can see that some of the biggest producers of oil are places like Russia, Saudi Arabia, and the United States of America.

Whereas the countries that are consuming the most oil are the United States of America, China, and Japan, for example.

So there is a variation as we look more in depth at this map.

The biggest producers are Russia, the USA, and Saudi Arabia, and the biggest consumers are the USA and China.

So let's check your understanding of this proportional symbols map then.

So according to this proportional symbols map, who were the biggest consumers of oil around the world? Pause the video and have a go at answering this question.

Well done if you said the USA and China.

So we needed to look at the key and identify that the green-filled circles is consumption, and then we can look to the map and find the biggest circles on that map.

Well done.

Exporting natural resources can impact positively on a country's economy.

Money earned could be spent on things like improving infrastructure, so roads and buildings, healthcare services, or education services.

All of these factors improve the standard of living in a place and consequently enable our country to develop, especially economically.

So it's going to improve the experience for the people living there.

This can be seen in places like Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

Both countries have used their wealth from oil to build some of the most modern cities in the whole world.

There you can see Doha in Qatar and Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.

The infrastructure is really modern and really big.

But it can also provide jobs for people within a country, such as those in transport and logistics to move the resources around, or extraction and refining to actually get those resources, or even management and sustainability to understand how we can protect those resources in the future.

So there's lots of opportunities for people within this industry.

However, it's not always easy, and trading resources can be risky.

Oil and gas prices can fluctuate, so that means to go up and down, depending on global demand.

If the price drops, countries that rely on these oil exports could lose billions.

And we can see over time on the graph, from 1861 all the way to 2023, the price of crude oil around the world has fluctuated.

We can see that at times it was really high, and at other times it was really low.

So it's important we recognise that it can be a risky industry.

So for this practise task, there are two parts.

Firstly, I'd like you to create a proportional symbols map showing the top five importers and exporters of oil all around the world.

And to help you with that, you have two tables.

The first table shows exports.

You have countries on the left-hand side, and in the second column you can see millions of barrels per day.

So the United States of America exports 19.

4 millions of barrels of oil per day.

Saudi Arabia exports 11.

4 million barrels per day.

Russia, 11.

1 million barrels per day.

Canada, 5.

7 millions of barrels per day.

And Iran, 4.

7 millions of barrels per day.

And then the second table has the same information but just for imports.

So you've got China, the United States of America, India, Japan, and South Korea, and exactly how many millions of barrels per day they import.

And then for part two, you need to explain how exporting oil can benefit a country's economy.

I would recommend having two different coloured pencils to do your first part on the proportional symbols map.

And make sure you include a key.

Good luck, geographers.

Well done for giving that a really good go.

So your proportional symbols map might look something like this.

So you've included your key, which is about the millions of barrels of oil per day.

And I've used two different colours, blue for imports and red for exports.

And we've circled around those countries.

Now, if we take a look at exports, for example, we can see the circle around the United States of America is really big.

So it's okay if it extends outside those borders.

That's absolutely fine.

But double check what you've done and check it correlates to what we can see on the screen.

For part two, we needed to explain how exporting oil can benefit a country's economy.

You could have said exporting oil can benefit a country's economy in several ways.

By bringing in money, the government can improve things like schools, hospitals, and roads, which improves the standard of living in a place.

It also creates jobs for people in the oil industry and helps build important infrastructure.

Selling oil can make a country more important in global trade as other countries rely on it for energy.

However, if a country depends too much on oil, it can face problems if prices fall or if the money isn't shared fairly.

So whilst oil can be a valuable resource, it needs to be managed carefully.

Well done if you got that absolutely spot on, geographers.

I'm sure you're still doing brilliantly.

We're now ready to move on to our final learning cycle, economic diversification.

Now, oil is a resource that won't last forever.

It's a non-renewable resources.

And this, combined with the fact that oil prices can fluctuate rapidly, means that the economies and countries that rely on this can be really vulnerable.

Some countries are responding to this by starting to diversify their economy.

This will mean they don't rely so heavily on the money they make from oil.

Diversify means to add variety or do something differently.

Several Middle Eastern countries, such as the UAE, Qatar, Dubai, and Saudi Arabia, are working to build new industries, such as tourism, sport, technology, renewable energy, and finance.

So they're trying to grow what their economy is based on so that they aren't so vulnerable to the changes to oil prices and availability.

True or false, some Middle Eastern countries are diversifying their economies.

Pause the video and have a go at answering this question.

Well done if you said true.

We know that several Middle Eastern countries are working to build new industries, such as tourism, technology, renewable energy, and finance, to move away from their reliance on oil.

An example of this is in the United Arab Emirates.

In the past, the United Arab Emirates relied on oil and gas exports.

Now it's become a global hub for tourism.

The country has invested in airlines and travel.

They've developed free trade zones to promote business.

They'd even started to explore space with a 2020 Mars mission.

And they've become well known for striking architecture.

So the United Arab Emirates is diversifying their economy, and now they're not solely reliant on oil.

In the past, Qatar relied on oil and gas exports but since is invested in sports, media, and education.

They have the Al Jazeera studio in Doha, and they have the Lusail Stadium.

This was built for the World Cup in 2022.

A final example is Saudi Arabia.

In the past, Saudi Arabia has relied very heavily on oil and gas exports.

But in 2016, the government launched their Vision 2030 strategy.

This national plan aimed to transform their economy in three key ways by the end of 2030.

Firstly, they aimed to diversify their economy away from oil.

That was one of their main priorities.

Then they aimed to build mega projects and attract investment.

And lastly, they wanted to implement social and institutional reforms. So what did those three aims entail? Well, to meet the aims of Vision 2030, Saudi Arabia has invested in projects such as NEOM, a new city being built in the north-west, near to the Red Sea, Egypt, and Jordan.

This will have four key features.

The first one is The Line, which is a long, narrow city with no cars, that's completely powered by green energy.

Then we have the Oxagon, a high-tech port and industrial area, partly floating out to sea.

This is followed by Trojena, a mountain resort where people can ski.

And Sindalah, a luxury island with hotels, beaches, and docks for yachts.

So they are doing loads to try and transform their economy and make the standard of living there better for the people who live there.

So what is the name of the project launched in Saudi Arabia to diversify their economy? Is it a, Vision 2020, b, Vision 2030, or c, Vision 2050? Pause the video and have a go at answering this question.

Well done if you said b, Vision 2030.

That's absolutely spot on.

So we're going to have a think about what this means for economies in the Middle East.

Laura says, "Without oil, the economies of all countries in the Middle East will collapse." I would like you to take what you've learned in this final learning cycle and respond with a paragraph to Laura's statement, justifying whether you agree or disagree with what she's had to say.

Make sure you draw on all of the examples we talked about.

Good luck, geographers.

Now your answer might have included something to this effect.

I partly disagree with Laura's statement because not all Middle Eastern countries rely only on oil for their economies.

While it is true that oil is a major source of income for many countries like Saudi Arabia and Iraq, some countries have started to diversify.

For example, the United Arab Emirates has developed tourism and business in cities like Dubai, and countries like Qatar have developed their media and sport industries.

Also, some countries in the region, like Jordan and Yemen, have very little oil and rely more on services and agriculture.

So although oil is important, not all economies in the Middle East would collapse without it.

Well done for giving that a really good go.

So we've come to the end of our lesson today on natural resources and the economy in the Middle East.

But to summarise what we've learned in today's lesson, we know that oil and gas drive many economies in the region.

Saudi Arabia is one of the largest producers of oil in the world.

Natural resources shape trade and wealth.

Unequal resource distribution can cause tensions.

Some countries are diversifying beyond oil.

And proportional symbols maps can be used to show patterns.

Well done for giving today's lesson a really, really good go, geographers.

You've done brilliantly.

I really look forward to seeing you in our next lesson.