In this activity, students play a game that simulates the carbon cycle. During the activity students will compare the carbon cycle before and after the industrial revolution.

Students will work in groups and research their designated terrestrial biome. Students will research abiotic and biotic factors about their biome. Students will create a digital presentation of their biome using Haiku Deck. The presentation will summarize how the abiotic and biotic factors interact in their biome. Students will then use the collected data from the presentations to create food chains and food webs for their designated biomes.

The Carbon Cycle and the Nitrogen CycleGiving us credit when you use our content and technology is not just important for legal reasons. When you provide attribution to CK-12 Foundation, you support the ability of our non-profit organization to make great educational experiences available to students around the world.Our Creative Commons License welcomes you to use our content and technology when you give us attribution. If you have any questions about our policies, contact us at support@ck12.org

In this Spreadsheets Across the Curriculum module, students will build a spreadsheet to calculate the net carbon sequestration in a set of trees using an allometric approach based upon parameters measured on the individual trees. Students determine the species of trees in the set, measure diameter at breast height (dbh), and, from the allometric relationships determined by forestry researchers, use the spreadsheet to calculate carbon content of the tree. Students can then compare their data to that measured a year earlier on the same set of trees, to determine the rate of carbon sequestration.

In this lesson, students will be introduced to climate change caused by greenhouse gases and participate in a simulation of the carbon cycle. Students will develop an understanding of how the movement of carbon atoms can contribute to climate change. Students will collect and analyze data on the movement of carbon atoms through the carbon cycle.

Students are introduced to the topic of bioremediation and collect information about Azolla, such as the morphology of water plants as opposed to land plants, the importance of symbiosis, the nitrogen cycle, the use of Azolla in agriculture, and Azolla’s ability to absorb heavy metals. Students formulate the research questions and hypotheses that they would like to investigate. Possible topics include measuring the gain in biomass depending on growth conditions (e.g. CO2 level, iron level in the water, amount of light), or the effect of Azolla on water quality.

In this lab students will learn about the water cycle. Included in this resource is a lab for students to build a physical model of the hydrologic, or water, cycle and an animation to supplement learning.

In this activity students will explore the Greenhouse Effect. This activity includes videos and questions to help supplement student learning.

This unit will introduce the basics of the carbon cycle. Students will learn how carbon moves throughout the different components of the carbon cycle and where carbon is stored in the Earth's system. Using case studies, NASA visualizations, current research, and interactives, students will explore how living things on land, in soils, and in our oceans regulate the carbon cycle. Because carbon and climate are tightly coupled, students will analyze the effect of carbon dioxide on the Earth's thermostat and our climate. Finally, students will seek possible solutions to a warming climate.

With prior knowledge of food and organic matter decomposition, students will use industry and extension publications to learn the processes of composting, as well as the benefits and challenges of compost production (available nutrient levels, community perceptions, hazardous materials, smell, and storage).

Students create a marine ecosystem and describe the adaptive, trophic, and symbiotic relationships between the biotic and abiotic components of the ecosystem.

This hands-on activity supports the HHMI short film The Guide and the 2015 Holiday Lectures on Science: Patterns and Processes in Ecology. Students will identify producers and consumers in the savanna ecosystem of Gorongosa National Park in Mozambique. Using a set of “Gorongosa cards,” they create food chains to show the flow of energy in the system, introduce an ecological force or disturbance (e.g., fire), and predict how that force would impact animals in the chain. Lastly, students will construct a more complex model of the flow of energy by depicting multiple relationships in a food web and again make a prediction about the impact of introducing an ecological force.

Students will investigate how nutrient enrichment in aquatic habitats can result in hypoxic or anoxic conditions and design an experiment to test their hypothesis.

Students will conduct a laboratory exercise that will examine the decomposition of organic household wastes from their home, and investigate which waste products can be composted and best utilized by plants.

In this lesson, students annotate a photograph of a local study site and then develop a more abstract diagram of the site that highlights the flow of energy and matter among the four components of the Earth system. The investigation concludes with students sharing their diagrams and creating a single class diagram to represent their study site.

This lesson is about the flow of energy in ecosystems. The setting is Plimoth Plantation, a living history museum in Plymouth, Massachusetts, USA, where students will learn about the first Thanksgiving meal in America, celebrated in 1621 by early American settlers and Wampanoag Indians. By examining this meal and comparing it to a modern day Thanksgiving celebration, students will be able to explore the way in which food energy moves and is transformed in an ecosystem.

In this lesson, students will be able to explain the relationship between the Pyramid of Numbers and the Pyramid of Biomass. Students will have the opportunity to examine and be able to calculate the area of a topographic map, then apply their knowledge to understand how much land area is need to support life at each level of the food chain.

Energy for LifeGiving us credit when you use our content and technology is not just important for legal reasons. When you provide attribution to CK-12 Foundation, you support the ability of our non-profit organization to make great educational experiences available to students around the world.Our Creative Commons License welcomes you to use our content and technology when you give us attribution. If you have any questions about our policies, contact us at support@ck12.org

Students explore the effects of human development on the Amazon rain forest in order to access valuable resources by analyzing the map Amazonia: The Human Impact. After analyzing effects due to mining and the construction of hydroelectric dams and oil and gas blocks, students write a proposal to protect an area that is at risk of being developed in the future.