Environmental education for all students is becoming more urgent as societies strive to deal with challenges such as climate change and loss of biodiversity. Teachers have an important role to play in defining the environmental knowledge, beliefs, and actions of the next generation. Understanding the anthropogenic inputs responsible for alteration of the global carbon cycle is essential if we are to graduate environmentally literate citizens. The association between anthropogenic inputs of carbon into the atmosphere and climate change is best understood if students first have a solid understanding of the carbon cycle. In the three-part activity presented in this article, students will research and diagram the carbon cycle, provide each other with constructive peer feedback, and then work as a group to apply this new knowledge to create a presentation focused on community solutions to climate change. The activities described in this article use active, collaborative, inquiry-based learning techniques to engage students in developing a model of the carbon cycle and developing community-based solutions to the problem.