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 >
The Hole in the Ozone Layer
Discovery of the hole in the ozone layer showed that human activity has a major impact on the Earth. The damage of ozone in the stratosphere high above the planet's surface has been brought about as the result of the widespread use of chemicals, which under normal conditions are chemically inert and harmless.The hole in the ozone layer is formed over the Antarctic continent each spring. During the long dark Antarctic winter, the atmosphere becomes colder than anywhere else on the Earth. Strong winds enclose the cold air above the Antarctic, allowing ice clouds to form. The ice crystals provide the sites where chlorine reacts with ozone when sunlight returns in the spring, and results in the ozone hole.Governments of many countries agreed in 1987 to the Montreal Protocol in an effort to reduce the amount of CFCs, and so protect the ozone layer. Since then, more countries have signed it, and more substances included for control.