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?
Over the past several days we have discussed how greenhouse gases affect climate change, and how our own carbon footprint contributes to these gases. Though some actions may seem harmless, such as taking a flight, there are serious results, such as significant emission of harmful gases, such as CO2. CO2 is a greenhouse gas everywhere, caused from trees getting cut down, burning fossil fuels, and more. According to the article "How Exactly Does Carbon Dioxide Cause Global Warming?'' it states, "as CO2 soaks up this infrared energy, it vibrates and re-emits the infrared energy back in all directions. About half of that energy goes out into space, and about half of it returns to Earth as heat, contributing to the ‘greenhouse effect.’" This means that as more CO2 is released, the more heat that is pushed back to earth, therefore heating up the earth due to the surplus of carbon being released.