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  • Carbon moves through the Earth’s system in many different ways. The carbon cycle is a visualisation of the processes that move and store carbon between living and non-living things.

    In this activity, students use the interactive carbon cycle diagram to explore the global carbon cycle and to answer questions in an online or paper-based quiz. The quiz combines scientific literacy with reading literacy and provides students with an opportunity to practise the science capability ‘Interpreting representations’.

    Alternatively, the quiz can be used as an introductory tool to gauge students’ prior knowledge or as a summative assessment.

    By the end of this activity, students should be able to:

    • use scientific literacy skills to read and interpret features of the carbon cycle diagram
    • use reading literacy skills to locate information and answer the quiz questions
    • use inference skills to answer some of the quiz questions
    • discuss some of the science concepts that underlie the carbon cycle.

    Download the Word file (see link at the bottom) for:

    • background information for teachers
    • student instructions.

    Nature of science

    One aspect of this activity encourages students to read and interpret features of the carbon cycle diagram. This aligns with the Communicating in science strand and the science capability ‘Interpreting representations’.

    Related content

    If you want to delve deeper into the carbon cycle, check out some of these related resources.

      Published 12 March 2018 Referencing Hub articles
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