What is 200 parts per million?

200 parts per million is like having 200 tiny pieces in a whole bunch of bigger pieces, imagine something you touch every day.

Imagine you have a big jar full of pebbles, and only 200 of them are blue. The rest are all different colors. That's what 200 parts per million means, it's like having 200 blue pebbles in a lot of pebbles.

If you had a whole bag of sand, and only 200 grains were special (maybe they're glittery), that’s 200 parts per million. It's not much, but it's still there, just like how a little bit of sugar can make your cereal sweet.

The Earth has air, and some of it is carbon dioxide. If we say there's 200 parts per million of carbon dioxide in the air, that means for every million bits of air you take in, 200 of them are carbon dioxide, like having a tiny sprinkle of something special in your breath.

It’s not a lot, but it matters, just like how even one small candy can make a big difference in a bag of chips.