As global warming and carbon issues come increasingly into the public realm it is critical that citizens understand some of the scientific fundamentals about carbon – i.e. increase their ‘carbon literacy’ if you will. To achieve this, one of the key challenges facing scientists is communicating effectively with the public. In particular, it is critical to determine the prior knowledge that people bring to an issue and design effective communication that accounts for this knowledge. Prior to developing an outreach activity in 2004 and 2007, we conducted some formative evaluation with 31 members of the general public ranging in age from 18-70 years of age to understand their understanding of carbon and how the terrestrial carbon cycle worked. One group of 12 was asked questions pertaining to soil directly while another group of 19 were targeted for their understanding of carbon pertaining to soils and photosynthesis. 
Results/Conclusions

83% of respondents did not know that soil contained carbon, and 42% people did not know whether plants took in or released CO₂ during photosynthesis.  The goal of this poster is to illustrate my formative research and communication tools, hand-on activities, and to use the results to suggest how we can make carbon cycling more accessible to the public so they may be able to synthesize the issues involving global warming, biofuels, and sustainable lifestyles.