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 >
Science and the Environment
What have you learned over the past 3 days about your carbon footprint, greenhouse gases and climate change? How do they all relate to each other?
In the past few days I have learned that my carbon footprint is slightly lower than average, and that transportation is by far the biggest contributor to it. I have learned that greenhouse gases trap heat in the atmosphere by absorbing infrared energy then re-emitting some of it back onto Earth, which we feel as heat. I have also learned that carbon is a greenhouse gas, and although it is necessary to regulate Earth's climate, too much of it can make the climate too hot; this causes climate change. Not only does the environment get too hot, it also changes in other ways from the excess amount of greenhouse gases, for example: tropical storms, droughts, and sea level rise. Carbon is produced by many things human do, including cutting down trees and burning oil, which are some of the biggest contributors. All three of these concepts are related because every individual has a carbon footprint, which means that we are all contributing to climate change through the over-production of greenhouse gases.