IF YOU ARE A CARBON TIME PILOT TEACHER FOR 2013-2014
Do NOT use the materials posted on this website. Instead, use the materials on the National Geographic private site, or download the materials from the MSU Environmental Literacy site using the private link provided during the Summer II Workshop.

Carbon TIME unit materials for the 2013-14 school year are now located on the National Geographic website. Contact Staci Sharp if you would like access to these materials.

The UNREVISED 2012-2013 Carbon TIME materials can be found here, or by navigating the menu to the left.

In the Carbon TIME project we are developing a series of six teaching modules that can be used at the middle school or high school level. They are based on research focusing on learning progressions leading to environmental science literacy. The purpose of these units is to enable students to uncover the chemical basis of life and lifestyles. The chemical basis of life and lifestyles lies in carbon-transforming processes in socio-ecological systems at multiple scales, including cellular and organismal metabolism, ecosystem energetics and carbon cycling, carbon sequestration, and combustion of fossil fuels. These processes: (a) create organic materials (photosynthesis), (b) transform organic materials (biosynthesis, digestion, fermentation), and (c) oxidize organic materials (cellular respiration, combustion). The summary (download) of the Carbon TIME project and units . We think that it is important for students to understand carbon-transforming processes for many reasons; among them: the primary cause of global climate change is the current worldwide imbalance among these processes. In brief, here are the units and the processes that each unit focuses on:

• Systems and Scale: Our first unit introduces students to key ideas that form the basis for all the other units by developing a scientific account of organic and inorganic materials, and how combustion transforms organic materials to inorganic materials and chemical energy to heat and light.
• Plants: Plant growth starts with a process of photosynthesis, using the energy from sunlight to create an organic substance (glucose) from inorganic materials—carbon dioxide and water.  Plant cells grow by transforming glucose and soil minerals into all the complex organic materials that plants are made of, including fats, proteins, and complex carbohydrates—the process of biosynthesis.  Finally, plants get the energy they need to function by oxidizing glucose—the process of cellular respiration.
• Animals: Animals cannot create organic materials like plants, so they must find organic materials—food—and break the complex organic molecules into simpler molecules that their cells can use—the process of digestion.  Animal cells are like plant cells in that they can grow by making complex organic molecules out of simpler molecules—biosynthesis again—and that they get energy by oxidizing organic materials—cellular respiration.
• Decomposers: Although decomposers (fungi and aerobic bacteria) appear very different from animals, aerobic decomposers (fungi and aerobic decomposing bacteria) are biochemically very similar.  Like animals, they rely on digestion (outside the body in the case of decomposers) to break complex organic molecules into simpler organic molecules.  The cells of decomposers also grow through biosynthesis and obtain energy through cellular respiration.
• Ecosystems: These processes, photosynthesis, biosynthesis, digestion, and cellular respiration, are constantly occurring in every ecosystem.  In combination, they constitute food chains, food webs, and energy and biomass pyramids—all components of the ecological carbon cycle, which cycles matter between inorganic carbon dioxide and organic materials.
• Human Energy Systems: Many aspects of our lifestyles, from driving cars to turning on light bulbs, depend on energy that can be traced back to combustion of fossil fuels, and we need to understand how our lifestyles affect the balance between organic and inorganic materials on Earth