the carbon cycle select your own journey! start! prepared by brad hartwell, the pennsylvania state...

The Carbon CycleSelect Your Own Journey!

Start!

Prepared by Brad Hartwell, The Pennsylvania State University, 2009

You are a molecule of CO2 in the Earth’s atmosphere. You can either be:

• absorbed by a palm tree

• absorbed by the Pacific Ocean

Photosynthesis has transformed you into a much larger carbon compound that is now in a palm tree’s coconut. The coconut has fallen from the tree and you can either:

• go unnoticed by local monkeys

• be eaten by a local monkey

You are at the surface of the Pacific Ocean floating around and relaxing. You can either be:

• absorbed by algae

• taken up by the atmosphere again

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The biological matter you make up has been broken down through decomposition and you are now either:

• returned to the atmosphere as CO2

• buried in the soil

The monkey has digested you and now you are located in it’s leg. You can either:

• be passed through the monkey’s body and exhaled as CO2

• stay there until the monkey dies, and become a part of the soil.

Photosynthesis has transformed you into a much larger carbon compound that makes up algae. You can either:

• be eaten by marine animals, and ultimately fall to the bottom of the ocean floor at the end of the animals life

• fall to the bottom of the ocean floor at the end of the algae’s life

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After being buried by sediment and being formed into rock, you can either:

• become melted magma and explode out of a volcano as CO2 after a billion years of being recycled within the Earth

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• be exposed to wind or moving water and erode as sediment into the ocean