These graphs show carbon dioxide measurements at the Mauna Loa Observatory, Hawaii. The graphs display recent measurements as well as historical long term measurements. The related website summarizes in graphs the recent monthly CO2, the full CO2 Record, the annual Mean CO2 Growth Rate, and gives links to detailed CO2 data for this location, which is one of the most important CO2 tracking sites in the world.

Students will explore the cycling of carbon between the atmosphere, geosphere, biosphere, and hydrosphere through both naturally occuring and human caused effects. Students will also explore how the ocean, an important carbon sink, is impacted by the rise of CO2 levels due to human activities and how life in the oceans is impacted as a result through a series of short video experiments.

Series of resources about the carbon cycle  with an accompanying assessment at the end.  

This activity from NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory introduces students to the scientific understanding of the greenhouse effect and the carbon cycle. The activity leads them through several interactive tasks to investigate recent trends in atmospheric carbon dioxide. Students analyze scientific data and use scientific reasoning to determine the causes responsible for these recent trends. By studying carbon cycle science in a visual and interactive manner, students can learn firsthand about the reasons behind our changing climate.

Students play the role of carbon atoms to learn about the carbon cycle and how it is changing. Students create two carbon cycle diagramsâvisual models of the cycle before and after the Industrial Revolution. They reflect on the game and how scientists believe humans are impacting this critical Earth system.

In this 3-part lab activity, students investigate how carbon moves through the global carbon cycle and study the effects of specific feedback loops on the carbon cycle.

This is a multi-faceted activity that offers students a variety of opportunities to learn about permafrost and the role of methane in thawing permafrost.

This unit introduces high school students to climate change, the carbon cycle, and the effects of increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide on Earth's climate. Students create a model from string, toss bean bags, and sort chemical cards to review key processes in the carbon cycle. Then they quantitatively model the carbon cycle by playing a board game.

This activity engages students with the concept of Direct Air Capture. Students watch an engaging film, participate in a reading and writing activity, and then model carbon dioxide adsorption/desorption in an exciting lab.

This simulation allows the user to project CO2 sources and sinks by adjusting the points on a graph and then running the simulation to see projections for the impact on atmospheric CO2 and global temperatures.

In this classroom activity, students analyze visualizations and graphs that show the annual cycle of plant growth and decline. They explore patterns of annual change for the globe and several regions in each hemisphere that have different land cover and will match graphs that show annual green-up and green-down patterns with a specific land cover type.

This task by ClimeTime educators, is designed for high school students studying the impacts of human activities on the carbon cycle and/or global warming. Given two people with different human activities, students compare and contrast the behaviors that impact climate change.
This resource includes a student task document, teacher guide, and task facilitation slides.

In this activity, students explore the role of combustion in the carbon cycle. They learn that carbon flows among reservoirs on Earth through processes such as respiration, photosynthesis, combustion, and decomposition, and that combustion of fossil fuels is causing an imbalance. This activity is one in a series of 9 activities.

Sample MISA High School Item Set for Energy Production and the Carbon Cycle covering standards HS-ESS2-6 and HS-PS1-4. These items focus on the bond energy involved in the combustion of hydrocarbons and the role of human coal combustion in the carbon cycle.Image source: "Carbon cycle" by Scottish Carbon Capture & Storage at www.sccs.org.uk

Humans have been on a mission to learn more about the red planet. Use this content guide to learn more about the challenges facing robotic explorers of Mars.

This set of activities is about carbon sources, sinks, and fluxes among them - both with and without anthropogenic components.

In this curriculum module, students in high school life science, marine science, and/or chemistry courses act as interdisciplinary scientists and delegates to investigate how the changing carbon cycle will affect the oceans along with their integral populations.

The oceans cover 70 percent of the planet and play a critical role in regulating atmospheric carbon dioxide through the interaction of physical, chemical, and biological processes. As a result of anthropogenic activity, a doubling of the atmospheric CO2 concentration (to 760 ppm) is expected to occur by the end of this century. A quarter of the total CO2 emitted has already been absorbed by the surface oceans, changing the marine carbonate system, resulting in a decrease in pH, a change in carbonate-ion concentrations, and a change in the speciation of macro and micronutrients. The shift in the carbonate system is already drastically affecting biological processes in the oceans and is predicted to have major consequences on carbon export to the deep ocean with reverberating effects on atmospheric CO2. Put in simple terms, ocean acidification is a complex phenomenon with complex consequences. Understanding complexity and the impact of ocean acidification requires systems thinking – both in research and in education. Scientific advancement will help us better understand the problem and devise more effective solutions, but executing these solutions will require widespread public participation to mitigate this global problem.

Through these lessons, students closely model what is occurring in laboratories worldwide and at Institute for Systems Biology (ISB) through Monica Orellana’s research to analyze the effect CO2 has on ocean chemistry, ecosystems and human societies. Students experiment, analyze public data, and prepare for a mock summit to address concerns. Student groups represent key “interest groups” and design two experiments to observe the effects of CO2 on seawater pH, diatom growth, algal blooms, nutrient availability, and/or shell dissolution.

The students will be introduced to a historical account of global climate change and the human events that may have impacted those changes. Fire has been used by humans throughout history to modify their environment, particularly forests, for human benefit. Over time, the management of forests has changed and the result is an increase in catastrophic wildfires. This storyline explores the use of fire as a forest management tool to improve the health of forests thereby decreasing the incidence of catastrophic fires and the role fire plays in climate change. 

Se presentará a los estudiantes un relato histórico del cambio climático global y las acciones humanas que pueden haber afectado esos cambios. El fuego ha sido utilizado por los seres humanos a lo largo de la historia para modificar su entorno, en particular los bosques, en beneficio de los seres humanos. Con el tiempo, el manejo de los bosques ha cambiado y el resultado es un aumento de incendios forestales catastrófico. Este caso explora el uso del fuego como una herramienta de manejo forestal para mejorar la salud de los bosques, disminuyendo así la incidencia de incendios catastróficos y el papel que juega el fuego en el cambio climático.

Patterns Biology is the culminating course in the 3-year high school Patterns Science sequence. Patterns Biology focuses on three-dimensional (3D) learning through culturally responsive, phenomena-based storylines that intertwine the disciplinary core ideas of biology with the scientific and engineering practices and crosscutting concepts as described in the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS).

The Patterns High School Science Sequence (https://hsscience4all.org/) is a three year course pathway and curriculum aligned to the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS).

Each course utilizes:
- Common instructional strategies
- Real world phenomena
- Design challenges to engage students and support their learning.

For more information, contact us at info@pdxstem.org.

The curriculum is a combination of teacher-generated and curated open-content materials. The Teacher-generated materials are shared freely under a Attribution-NonCommercial-Sharealike Creative Commons License.