Title: The Carbon Cycle
Name______________________________
Procedures:
1. Read the selection below about the carbon cycle.
2. As you read, draw what happens to carbon as it travels through the cycle.
3. Use arrows to show when carbon moves from one place to the next.
4. Make sure to label your drawing and include captions that explain where
the carbon is, and what is happening to it as it moves from place to place.
The Carbon Cycle
Carbon is an element. It is part of oceans, air, rocks, soil and all living things.
Carbon doesn’t stay in one place. It is always on the move!
Carbon moves from the atmosphere to plants.
In the atmosphere, carbon is attached to oxygen in a gas called carbon dioxide
(CO2). With the help of the Sun, through the process of photosynthesis, carbon
dioxide is pulled from the air to make plant food from carbon.
Carbon moves from plants to animals.
Through food chains, the carbon that is in plants moves to the animals that eat
them. Animals that eat other animals get the carbon from their food too.
Carbon moves from plants and animals to the ground.
When plants and animals die, their bodies, wood and leaves decay bringing the
carbon into the ground. Some becomes buried miles underground and will
become fossil fuels in millions and millions of years.
Carbon moves from living things to the atmosphere.
Each time you exhale, you are releasing carbon dioxide gas (CO2) into the
atmosphere. Animals and plants get rid of carbon dioxide gas through a process
called respiration.
Carbon moves from fossil fuels to the atmosphere when fuels are burned.
When humans burn fossil fuels to power factories, power plants, cars and trucks,
most of the carbon quickly enters the atmosphere as carbon dioxide gas. Each
year, five and a half billion tons of carbon is released by burning fossil fuels.
That’s the weight of 100 million adult African elephants! Of the huge amount of
