Biological Carbon Sequestration
How does carbon sequestration work in prairies?
Carbon sequestration is when carbon is pulled out of the air and stored. Trees and prairies both do this, but trees store most of the carbon above ground, while prairies store most of it below ground in their roots.
Description
Did you know that prairies provide healthy water and help to clean our air? Let’s learn more about how prairies in Iowa help to clean our air.
(From top to bottom, we see a yellow circle with yellow u-like waves around it like what you would create if you were making a birthday streamer, the sun. Under the sun is the green prairie plant that looks like stalks of grass coming out of the ground like the green hair on a toy troll doll. Above and around the green prairie plant are blue bubbles representing carbon gas in the air. To the right of the prairie plant are the words “Prairie plants take carbon gas out of the atmosphere.” )
(There are three blue arrows in the center of the prairie plant. Each of the arrows point down and the last arrow is faded as if the arrow is going away. As the animation moves forward, the arrows move down the prairie plant over the long roots of the plant. The prairie plant roots look like spaghetti noodles that have been laid out to dry. The prairie plant roots are shown to grow down through five sections of soil.)
(Each brown section is a different color of brown. The top section is a dark brown, the next section down is lighter, the third section is a medium brown. Not as light as the second section and not as dark as the first section. The fourth section is also a medium brown. It is darker than the third section, but not as dark as the first section. The last section is as dark as the first section. There are three individual roots of the prairie plant touching the bottom of the fifth section of dirt like a small child standing on tip-toes to reach an out of reach object.)
(There are darker blue bubbles around the roots of the prairie plant starting in the third section of dirt all the way down to the last section of dirt. The bubbles are numerous in the third section and get less and less as you get closer to the last section of dirt like a bottle of pop that you have left out on the counter overnight. Words to the right of the animation starting at the bottom of the third section of dirt over the fading arrow say “Prairie plants store carbon in and around their roots, deep underground.”)
[Narrator] Carbon sequestration is when prairie plants pull carbon out of the air and store it in their roots.