HS-ESS2-6
The standard
Develop a quantitative model to describe the cycling of carbon among the hydrosphere, atmosphere, geosphere, and biosphere.
Next Generation Science Standards
What this standard means
Students need to build a model that uses numbers, not just arrows, to show how carbon moves between air, ocean, rocks, soil, plants, animals, and people. They should include reservoirs, fluxes, units, and time scales. They also need to explain how photosynthesis, respiration, decomposition, combustion, ocean exchange, and rock processes move carbon.
Mastery looks like a labeled carbon cycle model with reasonable quantities and clear cause and effect. Students can predict what happens when one flow changes, such as more fossil fuel burning or deforestation. Common sticking points are mixing up reservoirs and processes, ignoring units, and treating all carbon movement as equally fast.
Ways to teach it
- Have students build a carbon cycle diagram with sticky notes for reservoirs and string labeled with gigatons per year for fluxes.
- Ask students to write: What happens to atmospheric carbon if fossil fuel burning increases while forest area decreases?
- Give students four carbon transfer statements and ask them to identify the reservoir, process, direction, and likely time scale.
- Use a class carbon budget based on school electricity use, cafeteria food waste, and trees on campus.
Plan a lesson for HS-ESS2-6
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Related standards
- MS-LS2-3
Develop a model to describe the cycling of matter and flow of energy among living and nonliving parts of an ecosystem.
- HS-LS2-5
Develop a model to illustrate the role of photosynthesis and cellular respiration in the cycling of carbon among the biosphere, atmosphere, hydrosphere, and geo...
- MS-ESS2-4
Develop a model to describe the cycling of water through Earth's systems driven by energy from the sun and the force of gravity.
- MS-ESS2-1
Develop a model to describe the cycling of Earth's materials and the flow of energy that drives this process.