What is the Carbon Cycle Game?

The Carbon Cycle Game is a game that allows students between grades 6 and 12 to learn about the role of carbon in climate change. The game teaches that carbon cycles through four spheres and that the amount of carbon changes as a result of natural variation and human causes.

The Carbon Cycle Game asks students to pretend they are molecules of carbon moving through the different parts of the carbon cycle in the Four Corners area of the United States, where Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah meet. However, the game can be adapted for different regions. Carbon is tracked as it moves through the air, or atmosphere; the biosphere, or living organisms; rocks, or lithosphere; and water, or hydrosphere.