Students from around the world calculated their class mean and standard deviations for their footprints and posted them on our world map.
Do you see differences across the globe? If so, why do you think those differences exist?
Did you use the calculator to try to reduce your footprint down to the average from a citizen of another country? What changes would you have to make to lower your footprint in this way? Are you going to try and take some of these actions in your daily life?
Student Footprints >
Travel
Most of my personal footprint (which was much greater than national and regional averages) came from travel both by car and plane. I think that travel is interesting because it could be considered both a want and a need depending on where you are going and why. For example, flying overseas for a tropical vacation is clearly a want, but commuting everyday to work or school and even flying somewhere to visit family could be considered needs. Given that some amount of traveling is unavoidable for certain people, I think it is important that we make an effort to travel in as environmentally conscious a way as possible, driving energy efficient cars, carpooling, and taking other efforts to lesson our environmental impact.
I agree, we should start using these ways to lower the amount of carbon we let out by transportation. I used to carpool with my cousins in middle school but now we go to different high schools. But now that i notice how much carbon i let out by transportation and i need to find a way to reduce that. I think carpool, or even the bus would be the best decision for me.