1. The Importance of Carbon!

2. What is Carbon?
Carbon is a naturally occurring element, and creates the hardest known element on Earth
It is found on the periodic table, atomic number 6
Carbon dioxide (CO2) is a product of carbon and is a pollutant

3. Little Known Facts? Carbon creates the hardest mineral on Earth
That Mineral is a diamond
Carbon forms coal which hides that beautiful gem
Diamonds can only be cut by other carbon based diamond drills!

4. What is the Carbon Cycle?
Matter that is used over and over again takes up space, has mass, and has a repeating cycle.
The movement of carbon from the environment into living things and back to the environment
English translation…. The carbon cycle is similar to the water cycle in that it is on-going.

6. Carbon Cycle
Carbon enters an ecosystem (all living things live in some kind of ecosystem) when living things (plants, humans, and animals) take in carbon dioxide from the atmosphere .
Plants do this during photosynthesis

7. Fossil Fuels
Organic substances such as coal, oil, and natural gas that is used as an energy source and is formed from the remains of organisms (former living things) that lived many years ago.

8. Fossil Fuels are a nonrenewable resource because they were formed from the remains of plant and animal matter from many years ago.

11. The process of evaporation from plants. Basically, plants sweating.
Transpiration
The process of evaporation from plants. Basically, plants sweating.

12. Environmental factors that can affect transpiration:
Light
Temperature
Humidity
Wind
Soil
Water

13. Can make their own food from non-living things (sun, carbon, water)
Producers
Autotrophs
Can make their own food from non-living things (sun, carbon, water)
Plants are producers

14. Consumers Heterotrophs Do not create their own food.
Eat plants and other animals to obtain energy

15. Why do we need Carbon?
Carbon is essential to all living things because all living things have tiny molecules of carbon living inside
When we breathe we inhale oxygen to survive, our bodies produce carbon dioxide, and it is exhaled from our lungs.
Just breathing may cause the atmosphere to hold heat.
So the next time your teacher says stop talking so much…do it for the environment!

16. Carbon Cycle

17. Global Warming
Global warming is a theory! It continues to change every year.
Global warming- The theory that the temperature of the Earth is rising and causing negative events worldwide.
Greenhouse Effect- The earth is releasing more carbon than we are using, causing excessive amounts of carbon molecules in the atmosphere. Carbon molecules in the atmosphere trap heat from the sun.

18. Summary
When we burn fossil fuels we add to the seemingly endless supply of carbon in the atmosphere.
Carbon dioxide causes the atmosphere to hold heat.
Warmer atmosphere can cause the temperatures of the land and oceans to rise.

19. Vocabulary Terms
Photosynthesis- the process plants use to take carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and make energy
Erosion – the wearing away of top soil by wind or water
Decomposition – the breakdown of dead materials into carbon dioxide and water
Respiration – the exchange of gases by living things. Breathing out carbon dioxide, breathing in oxygen.
Fossil Fuels – come from buried remains of long-dead organisms; to be burned for energy

20. Vocabulary Terms
Carbon cycle – the movement of carbon from the environment into living things and back to the environment
Combustion- the process of burning fossil fuels (such as natural gas, coal or petroleum)
Transpiration- the process in which some water within plants evaporates back into the atmosphere. (Plant sweat)
Nitrogen – a type of gas that has neither smell nor color that is a large part of the atmosphere and the air we breathe
Decompose – the break down of organic materials
The process of burning