PreScreener: The Carbon Cycle
(Downloadable - Copy and Paste)
Task Title: Balancing the Global Carbon Budget
Grade: High School (9-12)
Date: 2026-04-18
SEP: Developing and Using Models
DCI: LS2.B: Cycles of Matter and Energy Transfer in Ecosystems
CCC: Systems and System Models
Task Purpose: To assess students’ ability to develop and use a model (the simulation) to illustrate how carbon cycles between the atmosphere, biosphere, hydrosphere, and geosphere, and how human activities disrupt this cycle.
Instructions
- Before you begin: Complete the task as a student would. Then, consider any support materials provided to teachers or students, such as contextual information about the task and answer keys/rubrics.
- Prescreen: Answer the following high-level questions to identify any major red flags (🚩) in your task. If you find one or more red flags, consider the purpose of the task and the evidence gathered to determine whether the task warrants a deeper dive.
Prescreen Questionnaire
| Question | Yes | No |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Is there a phenomenon or problem driving the task? | [x] | [ ] 🚩 |
| 2. Can the majority of the task be answered without using information provided by the task scenario? | [ ] 🚩 | [x] |
| 3. Can significant portions of the task be answered successfully by using rote knowledge (e.g., definitions, prescriptive or memorized procedure)? | [ ] 🚩 | [x] |
| 4. Does the majority of the task require students to use reasoning to successfully complete the task? | [x] | [ ] 🚩 |
| 5. Does the task require students to use some understanding of disciplinary core ideas to successfully complete the task? | [x] | [ ] 🚩 |
| 6. Do students have to use at least one science and engineering practice to successfully complete the task? | [x] | [ ] 🚩 |
| 7. Are the dimensions assessed separately in the majority of the task? | [ ] 🚩 | [x] |
| 8. Is the task coherent and comprehensible from the student perspective? | [x] | [ ] 🚩 |
Recommendation
Based on your assessment needs and the task purpose recorded above, make a recommendation about this task moving forward (choose one):
- Warrants further review.
- Should not be used.
Summary
Summarize your evidence and reasoning:
The task uses a concrete, data-driven phenomenon (the Keeling Curve) to motivate investigation. Students must use the simulation model to track carbon fluxes across all four major spheres (LS2.B). The task avoids simple recall by requiring students to explain the rates of transfer and the impact of human “short-circuits” (SEP reasoning). All quality gates are passed.