The Carbon Cycle

What is the Carbon Cycle?

Did you know that you are part of a cycle that is important to every living thing on earth? Carbon is a natural element that is always on the move. It can be found anywhere on earth and also in all living things like: plants, animals and humans. The carbon cycle is the movement of carbon between different places.

every living thing on earth breathes. Humans, animals and plants, they all breath in their own way, and this is called respiration.  Animals and us humans, all breath in oxygen, use it in our body, and then breath out carbon dioxide which is a different form of carbon. We can not see carbon dioxide because it is a gas, just like oxygen, but it is around us all the time.

Now, wouldn’t you think that because we all breath out carbon dioxide, that at sometime soon, there wouldn’t be any oxygen left? Well that probably would happen if it wasn’t for plants. Instead of breathing in oxygen like we do, plants breath in the carbon dioxide that animals and humans have breathed out. The plants then use the sunlight to turn the carbon dioxide into energy and then release oxygen for us to breath once again. This is called Photosynthesis. The plants clean our atmosphere and provide us with oxygen, so that we never run out.

When plants or any other living thing dies on land and in the water, they start to rot and decompose. When something decomposes, it breaks down and becomes part of the soil. When something decomposes, all of the carbon dioxide that got stored by the body gets released back into the atmosphere in the form of carbon dioxide.

When the dead plants and animals don’t decompose and break down fast enough, they compact and merge into each other. these can then turn into fossil fuels like oil, gas and coal over a very long period of time.

Carbon travels from one place to the next. It is always on the move, from the soil to the air, into plants and to the sea which is called transportation. The Carbon cycle does not have a beginning or end, and it never stops. This is why it is a cycle, and it is a very important part of our life, and without it we wouldn’t be alive today.

By Carlotta