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Photosynthesis: Math Lesson: Activity 3 of 3

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What happens to all the CO₂ that’s released into the air? Plants and phytoplankton absorb a lot of that CO₂ for photosynthesis, the process they use to make food for themselves. In photosynthesis, plants and phytoplankton “breathe in” CO₂ and breathe out oxygen (O₂).

Some of the carbon in CO₂ gets incorporated into the body of the plant. We can think of forests as big storage tanks of carbon. In fact, forests are the largest carbon sinks on land.

About 50% of the dry weight of trees (the weight of the tree after if all the water was removed) is carbon. The dry weight of the largest living Douglas-fir is 394,240 pounds. How much carbon is stored in the tree?

pounds
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