3. Draw the Electron Dot Diagram in the Box Below

Names ______Period ______

Carbon Quest There are close to ten million known carbon compounds, many thousands of which are vital to organic and life processes. The concentration of carbon in living matter (18%) is almost 100 times greater than its concentration in the earth (0.19%). Living things extract carbon from their nonliving environment. To understand life as we know it, we must first understand a little bit of organic chemistry. Organic molecules contain both carbon and hydrogen.

1. Go to explorelearning.com (our gizmo site) and launch the Element Builder Gizmo. Check on “Show element name, show element symbol,” and “show electron dot diagram.” Using the Periodic Table, create the element carbon in the gizmo.

2. How many protons are in the nucleus? ______How many neutrons are in the nucleus? ______How many electrons are in the atom? ______How many valence electrons does a carbon atom have? ______

3. Draw the electron dot diagram in the box below:

4. Logout of the gizmo and go to www.visionlearning.com. At the top of the page, click on Library. Go to Category of Interest and under Chemistry click on Organic Chemistry. Slowly scroll down the page and study the diagrams of organic compounds in the picture frames. The large, white spheres represent what element? ______The smaller, red spheres represent what element? ______About ¾ of the way down the page, you will come to a box that shows the combustion of methane:

CH4 + 2O2  CO2 + 2H2O

6CO2 + 6H2O + sunlight/chlorophyll  6O2 + C6H12O6

Compare these two formulae and circle the only two organic molecules found in them. 5. Go to CHEM4KIDS.COM. Click on Biochemistry. Find on the right side of the screen “Basics of Chemistry.” Scroll down and click on carbohydrates. Read this page. What two things do carbohydrates do for living things? ______

6. Click on and read about Lipids. What is another, more common name for lipids? ______

7. What three elements are found in all lipids? ______

8. Click on and read about Nucleic Acids. Name the different elements that are found in nucleic acids (there are four). ______

9. Return to Google’s home page and click on images, type in carbon and hit search. There are many imagers of the carbon cycle. Click on and study as many as you can. In the space below, write an explanation of what the carbon cycle is.