Lesson 5: Nutrient Cycles
Duration of Days: 3.5
Lesson Objective
Trace the path of essential elements through the lithosphere, atmosphere, and biosphere.
What are the key biological and chemical processes (such as nitrogen fixation, photosynthesis, and decomposition) that convert nutrients into forms available to living organisms?
How do human activities (e.g., burning fossil fuels, fertilizer use, deforestation) affect the rate and balance of nutrient cycling, and what are the consequences for environmental stability?
HS-LS2-3: Construct and revise an explanation based on evidence for the cycling of matter.
Similar to SAT Science passages that ask how changing one variable (e.g., adding nitrogen fertilizer) affects a whole system
Tracing Carbon, Nitrogen, and Phosphorus through reservoirs using the Law of Conservation of Mass.
(DOK 3)
See "Materials / Resources / Text / Speakers" field
Students create a diagram of the Nitrogen cycle and must break the cycle at one point to show how human activities (like excessive fertilizer use) lead to terrestrial or aquatic imbalances