Soil and the Carbon Cycle Lab

• In this two-part lab, students will learn about how carbon is stored and cycled in the soil, the many types of soil microbes, and how melting permafrost may affect the climate.
• Students also learn about the nitrogen cycle and then design and carry out a hands-on experiment to explain the relationship between temperature and cellular respiration.

Positives

• This lab does a great job of connecting the carbon cycle, nitrogen cycle, and microbes to the bigger topic of climate change.
• The hands-on lab will be fun for students to set up and observe.
  

Additional Prerequisites

• If unfamiliar with the temperature and soil respiration experiment, consider a practice run before implementation.
• The link to tundra slideshow is broken.
  

Differentiation

• Students should understand that it is the microbes doing the respiring, not the inorganic soil particles, so make sure to reinforce this with younger students.
• Expand this lab to other activities and labs that demonstrate microbial growth, such as growing cultures from fingerprints on agar, swabbing doorknobs and inoculating liquid media, or digging in soil to find fungal hyphae or mushrooms in the soil on school grounds.
• Environmental science or ecology classes can connect this lab to lessons about ecosystem niches, nutrient cycling, the importance of biodiversity, decomposition, or important ecosystem functions that impact the global climate.
• Biology classes can use this lab when discussing cellular respiration, the carbon cycle, the nitrogen cycle, soils, microbes, or decomposition.
• Consider having students watch the videos as homework to allow for more time in class to do the experiment and discussion questions.