Preview · the opening missionRead this to the class:
A carbon atom in your fingernail has been on Earth since before the dinosaurs. It may have been in a fern, a fish and a loaf of bread. It never wore out. But the energy from your breakfast is already leaking out of you as heat, and it will never come back. Your job today: become a carbon atom, travel the ecosystem, and work out why carbon goes round while energy does not.
Each student is one carbon atom. Pairs check each other's passports. One student per station can be the Station keeper (reads cards aloud, keeps the tally).
Look inside the PDF
Sample pages, stamped “preview”. The download is the clean, full lesson.
In the full lesson PDF
9 printable pages
- Predict (5–10 min)
- Hunt (20 min)
- Reveal (10–15 min)
- Act (10 min)
- Background for the teacher
- Assessment
- Student sheet
- Worksheet: Station signs and destiny cards
- Worksheet: Label it
- Worksheet: Try it at home
On the student sheet
- My first model
- My carbon passport
- Energy budget
- Exit ticket
- Station signs and destiny cards
- Label it
- Try it at home
US Letter, prints cleanly in black and white. The student sheet is on its own page, ready to photocopy.
Free with an account (any 3 lessons), or US$19 for all 3 lessons in this unit.
What students show by the end
- Models the carbon cycle
- Separates matter and energy
- Uses the 10 percent idea
From the lesson’s rubric, which scores each one as not yet, getting there or got it.
Questions teachers ask
How long does “How does energy from the Sun move through a whole ecosystem?” take?
50–60 min. Group size: whole class, recording in pairs.
How much prep does it need?
15 minutes: print the four Station signs and Destiny cards, one set per class, and cut the cards apart. Put each sign and its six cards, face down, at a station in a corner of the room. Students need the student sheet and a pencil.
What materials do I need?
None. No materials needed: just the printed sheets.
Which curriculum standards does it cover?
NGSS (US): MS-LS2-3. It also matches England National Curriculum, Key Stage 3 and Cambridge Lower Secondary Science, Stages 8 and 9 (not endorsed by Cambridge).
What’s in the lesson PDF?
A teacher guide that walks you through predict, hunt, reveal, act, background for the teacher and assessment, then a student sheet (“My first model”, “My carbon passport”, “Energy budget”, “Exit ticket”, “Station signs and destiny cards”, “Label it” and “Try it at home”) on its own page, ready to photocopy. It’s US Letter and prints cleanly in black and white.
Can I try it for free?
Yes. A free account includes any 3 full lessons of your choice, and this can be one of them. After that, this unit is US$19 for all 3 lessons, yours to keep, or every lesson is US$199 a year.