Science Concepts—Blue Carbon

Summary: This topic guide begins with a review of photosynthesis and progresses to the role marine wetlands play in carbon storage. Through photosynthesis, plants absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen. Animals, in contrast, breathe in oxygen, and breathe out carbon dioxide. Since the Industrial Revolution, humans have been adding more carbon into the atmosphere through the burning of fossil fuels, and this imbalance in the carbon cycle has led to changes in the Earth's climate. The role that plants naturally play in carbon uptake is becoming increasingly important as humans look for ways to deal with increasing amounts of carbon in the atmosphere. Plants living in the ocean have a tremendous role to play in carbon storage, and salt marshes are particularly good at storing carbon. Understanding the important role marine wetlands play in carbon sequestration can help humans prioritize wetlands protection and restoration efforts.

Concepts to teach:

• Crosscutting Concepts
  • Energy and Matter
    
• Disciplinary Core Ideas
  • LS1.C - Organization for Matter and Energy Flow in Organisms
  • LS2.B - Cycles of matter and Energy Transfer in Ecosystems
• Science Practices
  • Planning and Carrying Out Investigations, Analyzing and Interpreting Data, Developing and Using Models, Constructing Explanations, Engaging in Argument through Evidence

Goals:

1. Through photosynthesis, plants take in carbon dioxide from the air
2. Most of a tree's mass is made up of carbon
3. Salt marshes store a lot of carbon because the organic material is slow to decompose

Standards: NGSS Performance Expectations

• HS-LS1-5. Use a model to illustrate how photosynthesis transforms light energy into stored chemical energy.
• HS-LS1-6. Construct and revise an explanation based on evidence for how carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen from sugar molecules may combine with other elements to form amino acids and/or other large carbon-based molecules.

Specific Objectives:
Students will be able to:

1. Articulate an explanation of photosynthesis to describe how plants put on mass
2. Define Blue Carbon
3. Describe the role marine wetlands play in storing carbon

Activity Links and Resources:

• Review students' understanding of photosynthesis:
  
  • Activity: Putting on Mass: Just how do trees grow?—Van Helmont's experiment. Solicit student ideas about what caused Van Helmont's seedling to gain mass.
    • Video: Lessons from Thin Air—click on VoD button for the second lesson to get a blue pop-up video screen. Play the first few minutes of this video at the end of the review to demonstrate that misunderstandings of how photosynthesis works is not as unusual as you might think.
  • Activity: Injecting Inquiry into Photosynthesis Investigations—Use bromothymol blue (BTB) to demonstrate through experimentation that plants take up CO2.
  Activity: Photosynthesis and Carbon Storage from Lesson 1.2 in the Bringing Wetlands to Market curriculum explores how wetlands function to sequester carbon, and includes the following resources:
  
  • Video: Two Minutes on Oceans with Jim Toomey: Blue Carbon—A very quick but thorough description of what "Blue Carbon" is and why marine coastal wetlands are important carbon sinks.
  • Reading: Blue Carbon Fact Sheet
• Activity: Wetlands and their Ecological Services from Lesson 1.3 in the Bringing Wetlands to Market curriculum explores different types of wetlands and the ecological services they provide
  
  • Oregon's Major Wetland Types

Assessment:

• Use Van Helmont's question as a formative assessment to elicit ideas about how plants put on mass.
• Redesign Van Helmont's experiment.
• Both exercises from the Bringing Wetlands to Market include specific performance tasks that can be assessed