Next Generation Biospheres
Classroom investigations into climate change
By Jimmy Karlan and Hannah Root
“
WHAT DO YOU THINK WOULD happen if we put
a large number of crickets into your biosphere today?”
After carefully constructing and sealing their biospheres
and then monitoring them closely for three weeks, the 7th-
and 8th-graders were bursting with predictions and ques-
tions. “They would have babies and then their babies would
have babies and they would use up all of the resources!”
“They would eat all of the plants, which would stop oxygen
from being produced, and they would all die!” “They would
breathe out so much carbon dioxide, which the plants would
like for a little bit, but maybe it would be too much?” This
group of thoughtful students at the Surry Village Charter
School in Keene, New Hampshire, USA completed the Bio-
sphere Challenge this fall as part of the lead author’s full-year
program called Wild Treasures: Climate Change.1 The bio-
spheres that students built are working models of the world
around us, with active natural processes and cycles happen-
ing in the small confines of 10-gallon terrariums. Arranged
along two sunny classroom windows, they are playgrounds
where students explore concepts like systems, cycles, and
resiliency. The Biosphere Challenge is an iterative cycle that
begins with the introduction of a new challenge, and then
leads students to test out their ideas, monitor the results, and
learn from the outcomes. Over the course of a month and a
half, the students build on their ideas week-to-week and come
away with a concrete understanding of how our Earth’s sys-
tems work and the consequences that can happen when they
get out of balance.
In teaching about climate change, it can be overwhelming
Page 14 Green Teacher 122
Photos by Laura Jackson
to take this global-scale problem and turn it into an observ-
able phenomenon in the classroom. How do we capture the
complexities of the issue, while making it relevant and engag-
ing for middle and high school students? And how do we
present it in a way that empowers students instead of filling
them with dread? The answer is not only simple and acces-
sible, but it can fit into a 10-gallon tank on your classroom
windowsill.
The Biosphere Challenge is an inquiry-based curriculum
that was first designed as part of Professor Jimmy Karlan’s
doctoral thesis to elicit students’ understanding of ecologi-
cal concepts and theories about what has to happen to sus-
tain life.2 “Create whatever you think has to happen so that
multiple generations of life can live inside a sealed 10-gal-
lon container for as long as possible” is the challenge that
has engaged students since 1995. But the next generation of
this hands-on, minds-on inquiry is more relevant today as
a climate change education tool than ever before. With the
aid of carbon dioxide monitors and a compelling series of
challenges, students use their biospheres to experience core
scientific concepts of climate change firsthand. Identified by
the authors with input from a variety of experts including Bill
McKibben, Tom Wessels, and Michael Simpson, five simple
scientific concepts make the complex global phenomenon of
climate change accessible to budding middle and high school
scientists. Play along with us as we walk through challenges
for three of the five core concepts of climate change in detail:
systems, cycles, and resilience. You can find lessons for
the other two core concepts, feedback loops and exponen-
tial growth, and much more at https://wildtreasuresclimat-
echange.weebly.com.

Systems
“The biospheres were in an enclosed space, so we had to
make sure that there was oxygen for the animals to live. So,
we learned about systems because we had to have water,
plants, and animals. We had to have plants to give out oxy-
gen, animals to give out carbon, so it all balances out.”
– Chloe, Surry Village Charter School 7th-grader
On the first day of the Biosphere Challenge, students create a
system that sustains life. Understanding systems is critical for
understanding climate change. A system is when the whole of
something is greater than the sum of its parts. A pile of dirt,
plants, and rocks laying on the ground is not a system. When
the parts are assembled into a biosphere that can sustain mul-
tiple generations of crickets, spiders, or millipedes, then the
biosphere is greater than the sum of its parts. The smaller
components in the students’ biospheres — like the plants,
insects, and soil — are smaller systems nested in the larger
system of their biosphere.
The climate change problem centers on the fact that
humans are making changes to smaller systems — through
deforestation or burning fossil fuels, for example — which
changes the larger earth system in ways that humans have
never done before.
When a smaller system changes, it may not cause an
immediate change in the larger systems that it is a part of, but
those changes can add up and eventually have larger impacts.
Most systems in nature tend to stay balanced, but because
everything is connected, seemingly small changes can add
up to cause larger changes. In a sealed 10-gallon terrarium,
small changes can have big consequences.
Cycles
“I didn’t know a lot about cycles before. I didn’t really
think about how things would pan out and, I guess, the
long-term effect of things.”
– Joslin, Surry Village Charter School 8th-grader
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Experimenting with changes
Surry Village Charter School students used several
strategies in hopes of improving their biospheres’ car-
bon and/or water cycles. Some students added a scoop
of soil because they thought that more respiring organ-
isms would help raise their biosphere’s carbon dioxide
levels. Some students added new plants to support pho-
tosynthesis. A couple of students added water to help
jumpstart their dry biosphere’s water cycle; whereas,
another pair added living plants, thinking that more
plants would remove water from their saturated soil.
Carbon is the backbone of life on Earth; however, it is
exceedingly difficult in the classroom to represent the differ-
ent ways it moves through our Earth system. To address this,
we challenge students to illustrate the small-scale water and
carbon cycles happening in their mini-biospheres. Students
each create desk-sized cut-out illustrations revealing their
understanding of the cycles occurring in their biospheres,
and then superimpose their understanding directly onto the
exterior glass walls. To close their day of playing with the
notion of cycles, students are invited to make one change to
help either the carbon and/or water cycle in their biospheres
and then track its success over the following week using the
CO2 meter.
When cycles are balanced, matter doesn’t build up in
one part of the Earth system because it is cycled out just as
quickly as it is put in. However, dramatic change in one part
of a cycle can put the whole cycle out of balance. This is the
dilemma with burning fossil fuels and releasing unprec-
edented amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
Although fossil fuels are not burning in students’ biospheres,
they soon observe that their CO2 levels are much higher than
the 400ppm in the atmosphere. Why?
The answer lies beneath the surface of the soil. Some sci-
entists estimate that there are more than a million microor-
ganisms in a teaspoon of soil. In our Earth system, the CO2
respired by these organisms is photosynthesized by the pleth-
ora of plant life, so the cycle remains balanced. However, in
our tiny biosphere systems, this cycle is likely to be out of
balance due to its small size and the unnaturally large soil
microorganisms-to-plants ratio.3 To see this first-hand, stu-
dents can be invited to use a smart phone with a magnifying
feature (flash on), allowing them to observe a far greater num-
ber and diversity of creatures than what students will ever see
on just the surface of their biospheres. Healthy biosphere soils
can reveal a maze of interconnected tunnels and passageways
made and used by millipedes, roundworms, mites, beetles,
and bacteria — and that’s just what’s revealed in the soil rest-
ing directly against the glass wall. This magnifying tool can
open a window into the extraordinary numbers, diversity, and
activity of creatures that live beneath our feet.
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Resilience
“I didn’t realize how much climate change affected. It
helped me learn that parts of the world may be slowly
being affected and [that] over time the whole world
might be affected. It’s slower because it’s such a big
area. And so, in the biospheres, we saw that over a
week they were almost completely destroyed unless
they were resilient.”
– Thomas, Surry Village Charter School 7th-grader
A system that is resilient is able to absorb stress, recover from
it, and prevent further changes from spiraling out of control.
During the resilience challenge, students randomly pick a
“fate card” (See Appendix A.), each of which describes a
major disturbance that will be imposed on their biospheres at
the end of the class period. Within moments, students are out-
side gathering materials to prepare for disturbances ranging
from heatwaves to rainstorms to deforestation. At the end of
the week, after collecting post-disturbance data, student pairs
make an argument for why or why not their system was resil-
ient in the face of their chosen disturbance.
A resilient system can adapt to the impacts of climate
change. We can learn about resiliency from natural systems
and apply what we learn to human-made systems, making
sure that everything we build has the ability to absorb the
stress of climate change and recover from it.
For our students participating in Wild Treasures: Cli-
mate Change, they turn their attention to applying these core
ideas to designing original research about their school’s resil-
iency, so that by the end of the year they can take measurable
actions to enhance their school’s preparedness for the local
effects of climate change. Some may choose to localize their
food system by starting a school garden and composting
system, some may design a series of purchasing criteria to
encourage their school to reduce the carbon footprint of their
school purchases, and some may add to their school emer-
gency procedures to account for more frequent and severe
weather events. Across the board, students are able to expe-
Page 16 Green Teacher 122
rience the empowerment that comes from taking action in
the face of great challenges. In the words of Greta Thunberg,
Swedish teen activist on climate change, “When we start to
act, hope is everywhere. So instead of looking for hope, look
for action. Then the hope will come.”
Effective communication
Of equal importance to the core concepts of climate change is
the social experience of engaging in the Biosphere Challenge
in class. One 5th/6th-grade teacher who used this challenge in
her Massachusetts classroom shared,
“...this is an activity that brings everyone together.
SIP [Social Intervention Program] kids who were
deathly afraid of outdoors were cared for by the kids
that were all over finding the insects and let themselves
be directed by them. A Level 1 ELL [English Language
Learner] was paired with a non-Spanish speaker and
they communicated just fine.”
– Kristin McLaughlin, 2019
Getting ahead of deforestation
In preparation for deforestation, a pair of Surry
Village Charter School students removed a portion
of their nutrient-rich soil. They anticipated that
when plants were removed from their biosphere
during deforestation, nothing would be able to
cycle carbon dioxide out of the air. So, they chose to
intervene on the front end and reduce the source of
carbon dioxide. Pairs who prepared for heat waves,
rainstorms, and increased cloud cover all added
more living plants to their respective biospheres,
thinking that the benefits that plant life provides
to the carbon and water cycles would offset the
negative consequences of the disturbances.
The Biosphere Challenge is engaging for all kinds of learners.
It encourages collaboration and effective communication in
the problem-solving process. It gives students an opportunity
to be and feel successful in solving a problem with another
person. In recent years, it has become clear that being able to
communicate and collaborate across differences of all kinds
(including identity, opinions, and biases) are as important as
having a basic understanding of climate change science. The
Biosphere Challenge is a curriculum that promotes the devel-
opment of these skills in a fun and supportive environment.
Depending on where you are located and what kind of
background your students come from, the climate change
knowledge in your classroom might vary quite dramatically.
We encourage you to jump into the challenge of teaching cli-
mate change head-on, bolstered by the simplicity and integ-
rity of the five core concepts of climate change and the intrin-
sically-motivating structure of the Biosphere Challenge. The
stakes are high with this particular scientific dilemma, and
no one will experience the consequences more acutely than
our students and future generations. As educators, we have
an opportunity to equip our students with effective communi-
cation skills and the best available climate science in order to
enhance their collaborative problem-solving.
Practical Information for teachers
Materials for each pair of students:
• 10-gallon glass terrarium (or any other container with
transparent sides and an air-tight lid)
• Glass lid (We have the hardware store cut glass to the
exact dimensions of the inside lip of our terrariums, then
cover the sharp edges with electrical tape.)
• Suction cup (to open and close the biosphere top)
• Trowel
• A
ccess to natural materials (dirt, moss, plants, rotting
wood, insects, water, etc.)
• A
ssorted containers (used for catching bugs and trans-
porting water or other materials)
CO2 monitor purchasing information and tips
• W
e use the XT-10 CO2 Monitor, which has an easy-to-
read display that gives CO2 readings in real time and is
rechargeable with a USB cable.
• h ttps://www.co2meter.com/products/recharge-
able-co2-monitor-data-logger is the website for purchasing
(also on Amazon for slightly lower cost).
• M
ake sure automatic calibration is OFF; automatic cal-
ibration takes the lowest CO2 reading and uses it as
400PPM outdoor air. Using the CO2 meter in a biosphere
Green Teacher 122
will cause readings to artificially increase. If you bring
your CO2 meter outdoors and it is outside the 350–
450PPM range, then it should be manually recalibrated.
See the instructions manual for how to turn off automatic
calibration and manually recalibrate.
Biosphere Observations (See Appendix B.)
• W
e welcome you to use or adapt this chart for student bio-
sphere data collection.
Jimmy Karlan, Ed.D., excels in crafting science curricula
that engage and empower middle and high school students.
Jimmy directs the Science Teacher Certification Concen-
tration in the Environmental Studies department at Antioch
University New England. Hannah Root is pursuing her
Masters of Environmental Studies along with her Science
Teacher Certification at Antioch University New England. She
studied environmental writing at Middlebury College for her
undergraduate and worked with Bill McKibben on a creative
thesis exploring place-based education in public elementary
schools in Vermont.
Endnotes:
1. All Wild Treasures: Climate Change curriculum is available for free at
www.wildtreasuresclimatechange.weebly.com
2. Karlan, J.W. (1995) Children’s Ecological Concepts & Theories: 5th & 8th
Graders’ Ideas About the Nature of Nature, Harvard University.
3. Dr. Rachel Thiet is a soil ecologist and Director of Conservation Biology
at Antioch University New England. Personal conversation (September 29,
2018).
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 Appendix A: Resilience “Fate Cards”

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 Names​ ______________________________________________________________

Directions: Use the C

​ O​2​ Meter to measure and record what is happening in your biosphere each day for at least two weeks. Experiment with taking
measurements at different times to see if your biosphere is changing throughout the day!

Biosphere Observation Chart 

INSIDE BIOSPHERE  CLASSROOM 

Date  Time 
CO​2​ Level  Temperat-ure  Relative  Moisture on  CO​2​ Level  Temperat-ure  Relative 
(​º​F)  Humidity  Glass?  (​º​F)  Humidity 

                 

                 

                 

                 

                 

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Appendix B: Biosphere Observation Chart

                 

                 
 

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