Educator Resources for Carbon Cycle Game

Carbon Cycle's board game format builds students' understanding of how carbon changes as it moves through our environment. Game cards represent particular transformations of carbon necessary for moving their own (or the opposing team’s!) carbon pieces towards a goal zone. The aim is to get the most of your own carbon pieces into the goal zone by the end of play. The game covers a broad range of science and ecology-related topics including erosion, animal death, ocean deposit, ocean diffusion, harvesting/processing petroleum, photosynthesis, combustion, herbivorism, and animal/soil/plant respiration. Playing the Carbon Cycle game develops students' understanding of the events that lead to the movement of carbon between different pools or reservoirs, and that both time and human behaviors are variables in the carbon cycle. The game begins with a short comic-strip introduction followed by a quick tutorial on gameplay. Students choose between a single- or multi-player game, and determine how many turns they want to take.
Image for Carbon Cycle Game