Mon Prof Augmenté
Carbon on the Move
Age 15 Geography
Carbon is an element that keeps travelling between the air, plants, soil and the ocean. Plants pull it out of the air, soil and seawater store it, and living things send it back again.
Step by step
- The cloud in the sky: the air carries carbon as carbon dioxide gas.
- The oak leaf: photosynthesis takes carbon dioxide from the air and builds it into sugars and wood.
- The cut soil face with roots and fallen leaves: dead plants rot and lock carbon into the soil, while microbes breathe some of it back out.
- The ocean wave: seawater dissolves carbon dioxide, and plankton use it before sinking and carrying it into the deep.
Examples
- Breathing out on a cold morning releases carbon dioxide that a nearby tree can use the same day.
- A garden compost bin, where worms and microbes break down peelings, warms up and returns carbon to the soil and the air.
Key takeaways
- Carbon is never used up; it keeps moving between air, plants, soil and ocean.
- The soil and the ocean each hold far more carbon than the atmosphere does.
A quiz goes with this lesson
Three questions asked a few days later, to check the idea stuck — not that the picture was seen. In the app, with a subscription.