Chapter 14 Homwork

Chapter 14, Section 1
1. The land area of Russia is 6.6 million square miles, making Russia the world’s largest country.

2. Russia’s natural resources are petroleum, natural gas, nickel, aluminum, gemstones, and platinum-group metals.

Creative Writing: One-Fifth of the world’s forest lands lie in Russia. These forests are 2nd in the world in the amount of oxygen they are returning to the atmosphere. The oxygen produced by the forests is necessary to combat the affects of the rising carbon dioxide levels which are increasing Global Warming.

Chapter 14, Section 2
1. Russia’s major climates are tundra (covering 10 % of Russia), subarctic (Russia’s largest climate region), Humid Continental (most of Russia’s Northern European Plain and part of southern Siberia), and Steppe (between the Black and Caspian Seas north of the Caucasus Mountains and a band along Russia’s border with Kazakhstan).

2. The tundra is vast and treeless plain with only mosses, lichens, algae, and dwarf shrubs. The subarctic supports the taiga, a boreal, coniferous forest belt the covers 2/5 of western Russia and extends into Siberia. The humid continental contains mixed coniferous-deciduous forests and father south contains rich soil that make grasslands ideal for crop production. The steppe is a grassland area and has chernozem soil rich in organic matter that enables many plants to flourish.

Creative Writing:
June 1812
Russia’s brutal cold is a weapon of its own, paralyzing my limbs as I wake in the morning. The sun brings no warmth and no hope for food. We are struggling to end our suffering by returning home. Most have given up and have fallen, slipping into a deep sleep as they silently freeze to death. These fallen soldiers haunt my dreams chilling me along with the cold.