Download Inner Space Cavern Post

Inner Space Cavern Post-Tour Assessment
Background
As your students learned from the Pre-Visit Activity on the Carbon Cycle, carbon is constantly
moving and plays a large role in our ecosystem. Caves are also dependent on carbon. The water that
dissolved the limestone and formed the void of the cave was made acidic by the addition of carbon
dioxide (CO2). Calcite, the mineral that speleothems are made of, is deposited by that same carbonic
acid. Calcite is another name for calcium carbonate (CaCO3). In order for the calcite to fall out of
solution, carbon dioxide must escape into the cave atmosphere. If the cave is open to the surface, that
CO2 will flow into the atmosphere, and the cycle will continue.
Activity
(Refer to Pre-Visit Activity #3, “The Carbon Cycle,” for detailed directions and correlations.)
Have the students create another Carbon-Cycle story or illustration, this time including the
journey a carbon atom might take as it makes its way through the ground and into Inner Space Cavern.
Have them describe in detail, either in the story or as labels on the picture, what is happening to the
carbon and why. For example, “Calcium bicarbonate travels into the cave because limestone is soluble
in carbonic acid,” or “Carbon dioxide escaped back into the atmosphere because a sinkhole formed in
one of the larger rooms of the cave.” Encourage them to apply everything they learned from the
activities and on tour to their stories.
Tour Assessment, Inner Space Cavern, Created 11/13
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