Mississippi Science ENV.3.1
The Standard
- ENV.3
- Students will discuss the direct and indirect impacts of certain types of human activities on the Earth’s climate.
Use a model to describe cycling of carbon through the ocean, atmosphere, soil, and biosphere and how increases in carbon dioxide concentrations have resulted in atmospheric and climate changes.
2026 Mississippi College- and Career-Readiness Standards for Science · Human Activities and Climate Change
Teacher's field guide
What This Standard Means
What Students Need to Do
- Students use a model to show carbon moving among the air, ocean, soil, and living things. They label moves such as photosynthesis, respiration, decay, and ocean exchange. They show how burning fuels raises atmospheric CO2, trapping more heat and changing climate.
What Mastery Looks Like
- A student can trace carbon from the air into a plant, through soil, and back to the air. They show carbon moving both ways between air and ocean, then explain how added CO2 leads to warming.
Common Misconceptions
- Students may draw one-way arrows into plants and oceans, as if neither releases carbon. Some confuse the greenhouse effect with the ozone hole or think warming means every day must be hotter.
How to Assess It
- Give students four boxes labeled air, ocean, soil, and living things. Ask them to add labeled arrows for photosynthesis, decay, soil respiration, and two-way ocean exchange, then draw a fuel-burning arrow into the air and explain its effect on heat retention.
Lesson moves
Ways to Teach It
Move beans among cups labeled air, ocean, soil, and organisms using process cards, then add fuel-burning beans to the air cup.
Ask students to write two sentences explaining why an ocean that absorbs CO2 does not prevent atmospheric CO2 from rising.
Have pairs race to place photosynthesis, decay, respiration, and ocean exchange arrow cards between labeled reservoir cards.
Compare NOAA CO2 and global temperature graphs, then mark where car exhaust enters a carbon-cycle diagram and explain how added CO2 traps heat.
Keep exploring
Related Standards
- FB.6.4
Develop and use models to discuss the climate, flora, and fauna of the terrestrial and aquatic biomes of the world.
- BIO.5.3
Analyze and interpret quantitative data to construct an explanation for the effects of greenhouse gases on the carbon dioxide cycle and global climate.
- BIO.5.2
Analyze models of the cycling of matter (e.g., carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, and water) between abiotic and biotic factors in an ecosystem and evaluate the abil...
- FB.6.2
Use models to analyze the cycling of matter in an ecosystem (e.g., water, carbon dioxide/oxygen, nitrogen).
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