April 1

Biogeochemical Cycles: Water, Carbon/Oxygen, and Nitrogen 💧🌬️🌱

📅 Notes Completed: April 1

In this lesson, students explored the three major biogeochemical cycles—the water cycle, carbon/oxygen cycle, and nitrogen cycle—to understand how matter moves through living and nonliving parts of the environment. Through notes and diagrams, students learned how these essential elements are continuously recycled and support life on Earth.

🌀 Key Concepts Covered:

🌊 Water Cycle

• Describes how water moves through evaporation, condensation, precipitation, runoff, accumulation, transpiration, infiltration, and root uptake.

• Water cycles between the atmosphere, land, and organisms, maintaining ecosystems and supporting all life.
  
  

🌿 Carbon/Oxygen Cycle

• Shows how carbon and oxygen move through photosynthesis, respiration, consumption, decomposition, and combustion.

• Producers (plants), consumers (animals), and decomposers all play a role.

• Humans impact this cycle through fossil fuel use and deforestation.
  
  

🌱 Nitrogen Cycle

• Explains how nitrogen moves from the atmosphere to the soil, into living organisms, and back again.

• Key processes include:
  ✅ Nitrogen fixation (by bacteria or lightning)
  ✅ Nitrification (converting ammonia to nitrates)
  ✅ Assimilation (plants absorbing nitrates)
  ✅ Ammonification (decomposers breaking down waste)
  ✅ Denitrification (returning nitrogen gas to the atmosphere)

• Nitrogen is crucial for building proteins and DNA in all living things.

🌍 Why This Matters:

Understanding these cycles helps us see how essential elements are constantly reused, keeping ecosystems in balance. These cycles connect the biosphere, atmosphere, hydrosphere, and geosphere, showing how humans and nature are part of the same system.

✅ Great job learning how the Earth recycles matter to support life! Stay tuned for activities that will bring these cycles to life in class. 🔁🌎✨