Activity A: Get the Gizmo ready:

Carbon pathways  Click Reset.

Introduction: Earth can be divided into four systems. The atmosphere is the air above Earth’s
surface. The hydrosphere is composed of all of Earth’s water. The geosphere is the rocky,
non-living part of Earth. The biosphere consists of all living things, including people. Some
scientists use the term “anthroposphere” to describe everything made or modified by humans.

Question: How does carbon move between the atmosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere, and
geosphere?

1. Explore: Use the Gizmo to create a path for carbon that begins and ends in the atmosphere.
Fill in the steps in the path below. Then, label each location with the system it represents.
Finally, summarize very briefly how the carbon atom got to that location.

Carbon path System How it got there

Atmospheric CO2 Atmosphere Atmospheric CO2 comes from volcanoes,
burning fossil fuels, and other sources.
Hydrosphere CO dissolves in cold ocean surface waters.

Hydrosphere In the process of photosynthesis,

marine algae removes CO from
ocean water.
Hydrosphere The animals consume marine plants
for energy.

Hydrosphere By the process of cellular respiration.

Atmosphere When the water warms it releases CO

2. Create: Click Reset. Use the Gizmo to create a path in which the carbon atom goes from the
atmosphere to the hydrosphere, biosphere and geosphere. Describe each transition briefly.

Atmosphere Hydrosphere Biosphere Geosphere

Atmospheric CO2 Oceanic CO Shells Limestone
Carbon dioxide They use it as a
Volcanoes, burning dissolves in cold ocean source of carbon for The structures pile up on
fossil fuels, and surface waters. their shells. the ocean floor and
compressed into
other sources. limestone.

(Activity A continued on next page)

Activity A (continued from previous page)

3. Explore: Use the Gizmo to create three more carbon paths, each starting and ending in the
atmosphere. Label each location with A for atmosphere, B for biosphere, G for geosphere,
or H for hydrosphere. (You can also use P for anthroposphere if you like, or just include it in
the biosphere.)

Path 1:

Path 2:

Path 3:

4. Explain: Based on the Gizmo, explain how the following transitions might take place:

A. Describe at least two ways that carbon can get from a land plant to the atmosphere.

B. Describe at least two ways that carbon can get from the atmosphere to the

hydrosphere.

C. Can you find two ways that carbon can get from the ocean to the lithosphere? (The
lithosphere is the rigid layer of the Earth, including the crust and part of the mantle.)

D. Describe at least two ways that carbon can get from seashells to the atmosphere.
 Activity B: Get the Gizmo ready:
Human activities  Click Reset.

Introduction: Fossil fuels, such as coal, oil, and natural gas, formed over millions of years
from the remains of ancient plants and animals. The burning of fossil fuels, as well as other
human activities, increases the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Question: How does human activity affect the carbon cycle?

1. Describe: Using the Gizmo, determine how coal and petroleum (oil) are formed. Describe
the steps required to form each fuel from atmospheric CO2.

Coal: Plant materials that accumulate in swamps can become buried,compressed, heated and
slowly transformed into coal.

Petroleum: As sediments pile up, lower layers are compressed and heated. Over million of years,
petroleum and natural gas are formed. These fossil fuels are extracted from wells.

2. Explore: Natural gas is a mixture of methane (CH4), ethane (C2H6), and other gases. Find
two ways that natural gas forms. List the steps of the two carbon pathways below:

Path 1:

Path 2:

How is the formation of natural gas related to the formation of coal and petroleum?
They both are related they both can be formed only if they are transferred by the
sediments.

3. Describe: Fossil fuels are used in many ways. Using the Gizmo, describe the main use for
each fuel.

Coal: It makes up 85% of fossil fuel carbon. It also generates electricity.

Rock layers may be buried deep in Earth’s crust and heated to high
Petroleum: temperature forming carbon dioxide.
Natural gas is used in power plants to generate electricity.
Natural gas:

In each case, what is the end product of burning the fossil fuel, and where does it go?
It goes to the power plant then it goes to the atmosphere.

(Activity B continued on next page)

Activity B (continued from previous page)

4. Explore: Another major contribution to atmospheric carbon dioxide is the cement industry.
Using the Gizmo, find a carbon atom path from the atmosphere to the cement plant. (Hint:
One of the ingredients in cement is limestone.)

Path:

How is carbon dioxide produced in a cement plant? The carbon dioxide formed in the limestone is
produced in a cement plant.

5. Analyze: Click Reset, then navigate to the Land animals. Select Atmospheric CH4.

A. How do land animals create methane? In the guts of many grazing animals, bacteria bread down
undigested materials and produce methane gas.

B. Humans raise large numbers of cattle for food. How will these herds of cows affect

Earth’s atmosphere?As there will be large numbers of cattle, they will produce more
methane. Then it is broken down into cars on dioxide through
a series of reactions.

6. Analyze: In many tropical rainforests, people clear land by cutting down trees and burning
them. After a few years, the soil runs out of nutrients and cannot be farmed any longer. How
does this practice of “slash and burn agriculture” affect Earth’s atmosphere?

This practice of slash and burn agriculture can Affect Earth’s atmosphere by creating
soil erosion. As people clear land by cutting down trees and burning them the soil on the
land loses its nutrients and cannot have ability to take part in the process of carbon cycle
or to transfer carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. The atmosphere loses its one of the factor
of receiving carbon dioxide. In this way, it affects the Earth’s atmosphere.

7. Draw conclusions: In general, how do many human activities influence the carbon cycle?

Human activities influence the carbon cycle because it starts with the carbon in the atmosphere and
can follow various pathways through plants and animals and gets back to the atmosphere in the
end.
 Activity C:
Get the Gizmo ready:
Modeling the
 Select the MODEL tab.
carbon cycle

Introduction: Humans have been burning fossil fuels rapidly for the past 250 years. As a result,
the amount of atmospheric CO2 has increased by about 40% since the year 1800. By measuring
how much carbon moves into and out of the atmosphere, scientists can predict the change in
the amount of atmospheric carbon dioxide every year.

Question: How can we model changes in atmospheric carbon over time?

1. Observe: The MODEL tab of the Gizmo shows a greatly simplified model of the carbon
cycle. The ovals represent carbon reservoirs, where carbon is stored. The arrows
represent the movement of carbon from one reservoir to another.

A. What are the two major sources of atmospheric carbon? Fossil fuels, land plants.

B. A carbon sink is a location that stores carbon for a long period of time. What are two

carbon sinks that remove carbon from the atmosphere? Ocean, soil

C. The unit “GtC” stands for gigatonnes of carbon, where one GtC is equal to one trillion
kilograms of carbon. Without making any changes to the Gizmo, list the carbon
reservoirs from largest to smallest.
Initial, Plant biomass, Fossil fuels usage, oceanic carbon uptake.

Note: The largest carbon reservoir is actually Earth’s lithosphere, which contains
about 80,000 GtC. However, there is not much exchange between the lithosphere
and the other reservoirs on short time scales.

2. Experiment: If necessary, click Return to original settings. These settings approximate

present-day conditions, but should not be taken as exact values.

A. What is the total amount of carbon removed from the atmosphere each year by the
850 GTC
ocean and land plants?

B. What is the total amount of carbon added to the atmosphere from soil and the

burning of fossil fuels? 69 GTC

854 GTC
C. How much will atmospheric carbon change in one year?

In 10 years? 890 GTC In 100 years? 1250 GTC

(Activity C continued on next page)

Activity C (continued from previous page)

3. Calculate: Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas that helps to trap heat in Earth’s
atmosphere. We need some CO2 in the atmosphere to maintain a warm planet, but excess
carbon can cause considerable warming of the planet.

A. What fossil fuel usage will result in no change in atmospheric CO2 each year? 0

B. What percentage decrease in fossil fuel usage is required to achieve this goal? 9%

4. Experiment: Using the Gizmo model, explore the following questions:

A. How does increasing plant biomass (amount of plants) affect atmospheric CO2?
It gets reduced.

B. How does increasing oceanic CO2 intake affect atmospheric CO2 and oceanic CO2?

It also gets reduced or remains the same but turns a bit. Harmful.

As carbon dioxide is absorbed by the ocean, the ocean becomes slightly more
acidic. This could make it harder for many organisms to build their shells and
skeletons. The consequences of ocean acidification are not yet fully understood.

5. Infer: Click Reset and Return to original settings. Suppose we completely stopped
burning fossil fuels immediately. How many years would it take to return to atmospheric CO2
levels from the year 1800, about 600 GtC? Use the Gizmo to find the answer.
200 years

6. Think about it: Since hard-shelled organisms evolved about 550 million years ago, billions of
tons of limestone rock have been produced from their shells. Limestone is made of calcium
carbonate, with the formula CaCO3.

Based on this, how do you think the amount of atmospheric CO2 has changed in the last 550
million years, and how has this affected Earth’s climate? Explain your answer.

Marine animals use dissolved oceanic CO as a source of carbon for their calcium
carbonate shells and skeletons. Too much dissolved CO makes ocean water more acidic.
The speeding up of the passage of carbon atoms from their volcanic sources into
sediments. This is how the Earth’s climate is affected.