Greenhouse Gases and Cattle

In this series of high school lessons and labs, students begin by exploring how energy flows in a system by comparing what happens when chocolate is placed under an incandescent lightbulb and a light-emitting diode (LED) bulb. They discover that since the LED bulb intakes less energy than the incandescent bulb that it also emits less heat energy. Students then investigate by exploring and expanding to other energy system inputs and outputs, focusing on cattle, methane emissions, and the biogenic carbon cycle. Students create models to make sense of and explain how various cattle feed (inputs) can alter the quantity of methane (outputs) in the cycling of matter and flow  of energy in aerobic and anaerobic conditions through the cattle’s digestion system.

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