Why CO2 is Bad for YOU!

Isabel falls in love with algae (which looks like floating slime, but is actually a very tiny kind of plant) in Beacon Street Girls Book 13, Green Algae and Bubble Gum Wars. Check out this excerpt, then read about why algae is so important for our planet's health!

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Isabel adjusted the microscope and squeezed her right eye shut. "There," she murmured. "Whoa…" she could not believe how many times she'd gone to ponds and icked her way around the green matter that floated at the top. "To think … all this time there were beautiful pictures hidden in that slime…" She sighed and turned her attention to the sketchbook and colored pencils on her desk.

She'd already filled up six full pages with her detailed sketches. Contained in the microscopic algae were incredible shapes and patterns—everything from delicate shells that reminded her of lace to balls that looked like they were made of Lifesavers to little half moons, all revealed under the microscope.

Isabel was mesmerized by Mother Nature's ability to showcase her secret artistic streak in something as vital to the planet as these phytoplankton. And they had all kinds of strange names, some of which Isabel couldn't even pronounce. Diatoms, coccolithophores, dinoflagellates, desmids, prymnesiophytes, prochlorophyte…who knew?

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Out in the worlds' oceans, algae is super important. Like all plants, algae thrives on carbon dioxide (CO₂), and absorbs lots of it from the atmosphere. That's a good thing because if you know much about global warming, you know we have way too much carbon dioxide in the air right now!

So the algae takes in CO₂, then many other kinds of marine animals gobble up the algae. Sometimes the CO₂ gets released right back into the water and air in these animals' waste. But one algae-loving creature (nothing more than a teeny-tiny blob of clear jelly) could help keep that nasty extra CO₂ out of the way forever! It's called… the SALP.

Salps come up to the surface in the middle of the night to chow down on algae, then swim way down deep to hide from bigger critters that might eat them when the sun comes up. Their poop is basically solid CO₂, and usually it sinks all the way down deep to rest on the bottom of the ocean, safe and sequestered* from the atmosphere.

Unfortunately, people pump carbon dioxide into the air much faster than algae and salps can take it away!

Carpooling or taking the bus or subway instead of driving is one way you can help with the CO₂ problem. Planting trees or flowers in a place without much greenery helps, too!

*Word Nerd: sequestered – kept separate