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Education: The Carbon Question

Preliminary Carbon Investigations and Training

Investigation 1: Preparing a Scientific Presentation: What Do We Know About Carbon?

Guiding Question: Why is carbon a fundamental element of life?

One of the first steps in research is to learn what is known about the problem you are studying. Using this information as a background, you can develop a scientific argument or justification to support the importance of the research you would like to do. Do the necessary library and Internet investigation and write a paper or develop a PowerPoint presentation based what you learn about the following questions:

  1. What is the role of carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas on Earth?
  2. What are the sources of carbon dioxide?
  3. How is carbon dioxide removed from the atmosphere and where does it go?
  4. How does carbon get stored in plants and trees?
  5. How does carbon get stored in soils?
  6. Is carbon stored in vegetation and soils permanently stored there?
  7. How might increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide affect climate?
  8. How might increases in carbon dioxide affect biomes and living organisms?
  9. What is remote sensing and what does it tell us about carbon?
  10. What measurements are obtained from carbon flux towers?
  11. What recent scientific findings are relevant to the missing carbon sink study?

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