Agenda

For this lesson, we will be taking a look at how carbon is cycled through an ecosystem and how it is connected to the global climate process

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“You will die, but the carbon will not; its career does not end with you. It will return to the soil, and there a plant will take it up again in time, sending it once more on a cycle of plant and animal life.”

—Jacob Bronowski​

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The biosphere included's all of Earth's organisms (all living the living things).

• Life in the biosphere ​depends on a continuous inflow of energy from the sun.

• Energy flows through food chains/food webs​

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Atoms and energy are neither created nor destroyed in biological processes. The number of carbons, hydrogens, and oxygen are the same on both sides of the equation.

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• Energy can be transformed from one type to another. During energy transfers and transformations, some of the energy coming in is transformed to heat energy.​

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Plant cells use the energy from sunlight to make sugar molecules from CO₂ (carbon dioxide) and H₂0 (water)

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​Reactants are on the left side of the arrow. Products on the right

Photosynthesis

Photosynthesis provides the glucose needed for cellular respiration.

• Plants and animals both use cellular respiration.

• Use ATP to drive processes necessary for life.​

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Cellular Respiration

Carbon is one of the major components of living organisms (proteins, carbohydrates, lipids, nucleic acids)

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The Carbon Cycle:

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1. ​Carbon enters the atmosphere as carbon dioxide from respiration (breathing) and combustion (burning of fossil fuels)

2. Carbon dioxide is absorbed by producers (plants) to make carbohydrates in photosynthesis. O₂ is released.​

Animals feed on the plants passing on the carbon compounds. These compounds are exhaled as carbon dioxide through respiration. The animals and plants the eventually die.

​​Step 3

Decomposers in the ground eat the dead organisms. They release nutrients back into the soil or aquatic environment. These are then released back into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide.

Step 4

​Carbon dioxide can be released when wood or fossil fuels (coal, oil, and natural gas) are burned. Too much of this increases the amount of carbon in the atmosphere which causes global temperatures to rise due to the greenhouse effect.

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The Greenhouse Effect