Middle school and high school
Approximately 2 class periods:
Through this inquiry and related GLOBE activities, your students will begin to understand the role forests play in the global carbon cycle.
[Note: read the previous blog posts in this series to learn about the world’s forests, biodiversity, and the economic and social benefits they provide.]
The fourth inquiry in The World’s Forests 2, on pages 31 to 36, asks “What do the world’s forests have to do with climate change?” Through this section, students learn about the impact of increasing greenhouse gases in Earth’s atmosphere and the role forests play in the carbon cycle.
You will find the lesson plan for this inquiry, starting on page 55, as a useful guide as you lead your students through making comparisons, defining vocabulary, and asking probing questions.
The topics in Inquiry 4 can be further explored through the GLOBE Program’s carbon cycle activities, in particular the Carbon Travels Game (pdf). Students play a dice game to follow a carbon atom as it travels through the Earth's carbon pools.
Find related activities on GLOBE’s Carbon Cycle page.
To extend their learning even further, students can collect carbon and biomass data using GLOBE’s Carbon Cycle protocols.
[Note: these protocols are quite complex and involved. I recommend working with a GLOBE Partner who is familiar with these specific protocols. Feel free to reach out to me if you’re interested: alicia dot carlson at unh dot edu.]
My NASA Data developed a Trees and the Carbon Cycle (pdf) five-day pacing guide. This includes additional learning activities and NASA connections. On each of the five days, one activity is provided to weave a thread from tree growth, to biomass, to carbon sequestration.
If you’re not yet trained in GLOBE or you aren’t familiar with the surface temperature protocol, I recommend that you take the eTraining associated with each protocol as well as the introductory training for the sphere the protocol is associated with.
Once you have completed a GLOBE training, you can add your students’ data to the GLOBE database. GLOBE’s database contains 30 years of data collected by GLOBE students, educators, and citizen scientists. Learn more about GLOBE Data Entry.
After completing Inquiry 4, continue on to Inquiry 5 to learn about sustainable forest management.
Acknowledgement: This material is based upon work supported by USDA Forest Service Eastern Region (Agreement no. 20-PA-11090100-026). Any opinion, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the USDA Forest Service.
This blog post is part of the GLOBE and the Natural Inquirer Crosswalk Project . Other blog posts are available on the U.S. GLOBE Teacher Resources page .
Natural Inquirer issues can be downloaded, and classroom sets of many issues can be ordered from their website. Find the complete list of issues available and instructions for ordering on the Natural Inquirer website .
