Carbon Dioxide Exercise

Randy Richardson, SERC - Starting Point Collection

In this activity, students work in groups, plotting carbon dioxide concentrations over time on overheads and estimating the rate of change over five years. Stacked together, the overheads for the whole class show an increase on carbon dioxide over five years and annual variation driven by photosynthesis. This exercise enables students to practice basic quantitative skills and understand how important sampling intervals can be when studying changes over time. A goal is to see how small sample size may give incomplete picture of data.

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Clear instructions are in the student handout. Note that there are two options for distributing the data points. If part 2 on the student handout is used for homework, educator must provide compiled CO2 curve ahead of time. Students could be challenged to investigate why CO2 is increasing (natural variation and/or anthropogenic sources).
Allows students to work with real data through the simple graphing of original CO2 data at Mauna Loa. Good basic introduction to the Keeling curve. Added insight that when data points are collected (i.e. sampling interval) can have a substantial bearing on the interpretation of the data; the idea of outliers can also be introduced. Tackles a small part of understanding atmospheric CO2 and does so very effectively. Uses data from 2005 through March 2012 (activity says in descriptions of files etc., that data only available through 2011 but it actually includes data from 2012). Useful for addressing misconceptions about atmospheric CO2 concentrations and measurements.