This is a starter for teachers, it can be expanded into Language arts, PE,
Health, Government, Ethics, Business, History, and for all age groups
K-12-adult. It just requires a little thought.
Ask students if the know the following:
For Math
The weight of a gallon of gas?
How many gallons fit in the family car?
How many times a week does the car get filled up?
What is the cost of the fuel for a year at current prices?
What will fuel for a year cost at $4 a gallon? $5? $6 or $10
How much weight in (Carbon or CO2) fuel did your family put into the
air in one year?
Advanced thoughts:
Where does carbon based gas come from?
Where does it go to?
For science:
The carbon cycle is simple, Carbon in the air CO2
gets absorbed by a green plant, chlorophyll bonds the carbon with
water from the ground and creates sugar and oxygen, the sugar is consumed
in many numbers of ways bonding with oxygen to form the gas
CO2
What major three elements are all plant life made of? C, H, O,
Where does a tree absorb its H2O from the ground? or the air?
Where does a tree absorb its (CO2) carbon from?
What does the photosynthesis processes in the leaf create with
the water and the carbon dioxide? CHO+O2
Water from the root system is bonded inside the leaf with to
carbon dioxide from the air. This photosynthesis process creates sugar
and oxygen. (For younger kids I only use the words Sugar or Sugar compounds and
Oxygen I do not get into formulas)
11H20+12CO2 = C12 H22 O11 + 6O2
The carbon cycle is simple, Carbon in the air
gets absorbed by a green plant, chlorophyll bonds the carbon with water from the
ground and creates sugar and oxygen, the sugar is consumed
in many numbers of ways bonding with oxygen to form the gas
CO2
Most of the Carbon weight of a tree comes from
the air not the soil. After you cut a tree down and dry out the logs almost all
the weight of the log is carbon compounds that came from the air. Carbon can be
a heavy gas in the air and become a solid through photosynthesis, We can rot or
burn the wood and release the carbon as a gas back into the air. All surface
animals eat carbon based foods, and release Co2 as they digest or as they rot
back into the air. NOW the complex part: Carbon that was
trapped in the ground as coal or petroleum is not part of the
balanced carbon cycle. We dig it up, bond it with oxygen (Burn it) to
create CO2. and we do not trap the CO2 and put it back into the earth from where
we dug it up. We are also reducing the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere by
bonding it with buried carbon.
If a tree weighs 2 tons after it is cut down and
dried out: How many trees would we have to grow each year to trap the equal
weight of carbon that we dig out of the ground and put into the air? How
would we put all that solid carbon or trees back into the ground
where it came from?
Good carbon cycle: Carbon in the air gets
absorbed by a green plant, chlorophyll bonds the carbon with water from the
ground and creates sugar and oxygen, the sugar is consumed by human and made
into energy on a bicycle, carbon is expelled as a gas CO2. The carbon
cycle is in balance. The air is cleaner you are healthier.
The question here is How do you make cycling
fun?
How do you get to school, events, date, work,
get groceries, take tools or computers to work, how do you dress professionally
for work and ride a bike. How do you stay clean, dry, warm, cool
on a bike? Are there bikes that have protection from rain, snow, wind? Do they
have windshield wipers, turn signals, great lights, comfortable seats? (Look up
Velomobile's) What is there to learn in the bicycle world that I do not
know?
What are the costs for a car? Insurance, fuel,
maintenance (Oil, Tires), repairs, tolls, licence, Plates, city
stickers, loan/lease/purchase, customization? Health benefits? How much
will fuel cost change in the next ten years? 15 years? 20 years? When will you
not be able to afford fuel?
What are the costs for the
bicycle? maintenance (Oil, Tires), repairs, purchase, customization ?
Health benefits?
For both you have food cost, after sitting in a
car for a few years you will need to add gym membership cost to the car costs.
With the money you save riding a bike can
you afford to live a better life? Eat nicer foods, have money for nicer trips,
or what ever you like to do with some bucks in your pocket? Or will you always
be broke paying for expensive personal transportation? Have kids write down
ideas on how they would spend money now, when they are in college, when they are
in their twenties, or thirties? How much money would they save by the time
they were 40?