The Carbon CycleSelect Your Own Journey!

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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