This is not a typical PowerPoint presentation where a teacher lectures and student's take notes. This is a fully interactive tutorial, created with PowerPoint. The great thing about a PowerPoint tutorial is they require no special internet plugins and should be compatible with Macs, although this is sometimes a problem.

In this tutorial. students will learn how phosphorus cycles through the environment and up the food chain. The tutorial will explore how phosphorus first enters the environment and is then used by producers, consumers, and decomposers. The tutorial concludes by addressing the human impact on the phosphorus cycle. Along the way, students click and answer their way through a review quiz and a variety of probing questions. The tutorial is supported by a variety of animations to better illustrate this complex cycle.

As student's read through the tutorial, they complete a worksheet in the form of class notes. When finished, the worksheet is a great study tool for them to use.

There are 9 files in this download:

1. The tutorial in the newer PowerPoint format. Fully editable if you wish.

2. The tutorial in an older version (1997-2003) of PowerPoint in case your school has not updated your Office software. Fully editable if you wish.

3. The tutorial in "PowerPoint Show" format. This means the tutorial will start the moment it is clicked on.

4. Student worksheet in the newer version of Word format. Fully editable if you wish.

5. Student worksheet in an older version (1997-2003) of Word in case your school has not updated your Office software. Fully editable if you wish. Fully editable if you wish.

6. Student worksheet in PDF (uneditable)

7. Answer key in the newer version of Word format. Fully editable if you wish.

8. Answer key in an older version (1997-2003) of Word in case your school has not updated your Office software. Fully editable if you wish. Fully editable if you wish.

9. Answer key in PDF format

Common questions I have been asked:

1) Can Chromebooks and Google Slides run this tutorial? The answer is "probably not." I created the tutorial using Microsoft PowerPoint, which is simply more powerful than Google Slides. Much of the interactivity that I created in the tutorial will be lost. Most of the animations that I created will not work. I wish there was a better answer.

2) How do you use this tutorial in your classroom?

- option A: Place the tutorial on your school's LMS for your students to access. My school district uses Google Classroom. So I simply upload this tutorial into Google Classroom and my students can access the file from there.

- option B: Gather a collection of old USB/thumb drives. You can then save the tutorial onto the USB drives and hand them to students as needed.

3) How did you obtain a class set of USB/thumb/flash drives?

Some of the USB drives I purchased years ago for my own needs. However, many were donated by colleagues as many people have extra USB drives cluttering up their drawers at home. A few were donated by students who had extras at home. Just ask around and I bet you can accumulate a small collection.

I have many other Interactive Tutorials. Here are links to my others:

• Blood typing
• Endocrine system
• Kingdom Protista
• Mendelian Genetics
• Mitosis
• Meiosis
• Natural Selection
• Organelles of the Cell
• Pathway of Protein Creation
• Phosphorus Cycle
• Sex Linked Inheritance
• Scientific Method
• Transcription
• Translation
• Viruses and the Lytic Cycle

Key words:

Biogeochemical

Phosphorus

DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid)

Phospholipids

ATP (adenosine triphosphate)

Fertilizer

Organic food

Organic farming

Pollution

Rocks

Food chain

Producers

Consumers

Decomposers