The carbon cycle
You are a carbon atom. Fly around a volcanic island as carbon dioxide and follow where carbon goes: into a leaf and a cow, down with the rain and the river, into the sea, a plankton cell, and a coral, sinking into the deep ocean, and buried for millions of years as coal, oil, and limestone.
Building the island
You are carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The forest.
What students walk away with
- 1Carbon is never used up. The same atoms move between the air, living things, water, and rock, changing molecules as they go.
- 2Photosynthesis pulls carbon out of the air as sugar; respiration, decay, and burning put it back as carbon dioxide.
- 3Carbon stays in some places for days and in others for centuries or millions of years.
Standards
- MS-LS2-3 Cycling of matter and flow of energy in ecosystems
- HS-LS2-5 Photosynthesis and respiration in the carbon cycle
- HS-ESS2-6 Cycling of carbon among Earth's spheres
Game. Grades 6 to 12. Question sets for middle school, high school, and upper high school.
How the game works
Each student flies one carbon atom and picks every move; nature does not. Where carbon can go from each place, how long it typically stays, and how much of it takes each way in nature come from published carbon budgets. The Carbon cycle map shows all of it, and its shares are what the atom would do if left to nature.
An assignment asks questions and sets missions. You pick which missions to offer and how many each student must complete: Talc (5 of 13, about one class period), Quartz (8 of 15, about two class periods), Diamond (12 of 24, a week-long project), or your own pick. A mission is completed by the path one atom takes in one run, so students plan a route rather than tick boxes. The Explain questions open once a student has completed the missions you asked for. Missions are not scored; the roster shows which each student met and their atom's latest path.
What it simplifies: the island packs a volcano, a reef, a trench, a coal swamp, and an oil field closer together than any real coast. The molecule is drawn far larger than the landscape allows, and deep time plays as a short time-lapse. A young volcanic island would not hold coal; this one does so students can follow carbon into it, and the game says so where coal forms.
It runs on school Chromebooks at Low detail, which the game picks for itself. A run in progress is kept on the device, so a student can continue it next class.
Run it with a class
Pick the questions, get a class code, and watch answers arrive live. Students need only a first name.
Set up an assignment