This unit is designed to provide the reader with an understanding of the carbon cycle, reasons why the CO2 levels are going up in the atmosphere, how this increase impacts pH in the ocean waters, and how lower pH or ocean acidification impacts the plants and animals that make up the marine ecosystems. Students will have a chance to understand the major players in these processes and will be provided with opportunities to create models to better understand as well as visualize these concepts. This unit also includes several demonstrations revolving around the concepts of the carbon cycle, ocean acidification, and its impact on soft-shell forming organisms, plants, and corals. Giving students several opportunities to understand the concepts and later come up with strategies that will help understand, mitigate, decrease, and maybe even reverse the stresses caused by ocean acidification.
As a culminating activity, the students will create awareness posters to inform and enlighten their classmates, family, and community members about the negative impacts of ocean acidification. They will also write letters to their local representatives about the possible laws and practices that could be set in place to address these issues in their communities. This two-week unit (5 blocks 90 minutes long) is designed to understand the phenomena of the carbon cycle, ocean acidification, and its effects on plants, animals that make up the marine ecosystems. The unit is designed while keeping 10th grade, inner-city, high school students in mind.
Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), state, and district standards addressed: The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) high school life science curriculum consists of five topics: 1) structure and function, 2) inheritance and variation of traits, matter, and energy in organisms and ecosystems, 4) interdependent relationships in ecosystems, and 5) natural selection and evolution. This unit covers a part of the structure and function as well as the interdependent relationships in ecosystems particularly, the marine ecosystems and the impact of human activities on their survivability. Students demonstrate their understanding through critical reading, using models, and conducting investigations.
The National Standards that are covered through this unit include:
- HS-LS2: Design, evaluate, and refine a solution for reducing the impacts of human activities on the environment and biodiversity.
- HS-ESS 2-6: Develop a quantitative model to describe the cycling of carbon among the hydrosphere, atmosphere, geosphere, and biosphere.
- NGSS-HS-ETS1-2. Design a solution to a complex real-world problem by breaking it down into smaller, more manageable problems that can be solved through engineering.
This unit will incorporate the following Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) Science and Engineering Practices2 :
- Asking questions (for science) to understand the carbon cycle, how the increase in atmospheric CO2 impacts the pH of ocean waters, and how lower pH might impact the ocean life
- Developing and using models to understand the process of ocean acidification and how lowering the pH affects the marine ecosystem
- Constructing explanations (for science) about the ocean acidification negatively impacts the plants, animals that make up the marine ecosystem
- Obtaining, evaluating, and communicating information about the impact of human activities such as the burning of fossil fuels and increasing the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere cause ocean acidification.
