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 >
My Carbon Footprint
My carbon footprint was pretty high. I live in the California, USA and the average is 9727 kg. My carbon footprint was much higher than the average.
Transportation - Average: 2557 kg Me: 4716 kg
My family likes to travel a lot and visit family members around the country. We fly about six times a year and visit family members. We also like to drive to fun palaces around the state. We drive about 10 times a year to a place around the state we would like to visit.
Home - Average: 3757 kg Me: 6391 kg
My family is not very good about turning off lights. We always leave a room with the lights on. Every morning we tend to leave the lights on when we leave for school. It is definitely an improvement we need to make. Also, my family likes to take long showers or take one multiple times a day. We are working on that to.
Food - Average: 2223 kg Me:8813 kg
My family likes to eat a lot which causes us to buy more food. With making lunches for school to eating breakfast and dinner, we tend to use most food in our cupboard very quickly. We are also very picky about what we eat.
Pur chases - Average: 1191 kg Me: 533 kg
My carbon footprint was surprisingly low on this one. I thought that purchases would be a high one because I like to buy stuff. But since my sibling and I are close in size we are able to share clothes.
My total carbon footprint was 20452 kg, much higher than the average. By working as hard as I can, I might be able to decrease some of my carbon footprints. It might take a while, but I am sure I can do it.
My family likes to travel a lot too! Maybe, we could use a different way to travel so we could use less carbon. My home average was higher than yours, my family also uses a lot of electricity and forgets to turn it off before we leave the house or stop using them. My family as well, needs to improve on turning the power off when we stop utilizing the specific device.
I also do massive amounts of travel. This year I took around 15 flights with a few of them being out of the country. They got me to have a footprint that was much larger than it should have been.
My family travels a lot too but we drive all over the country. Flying is actually better than driving simply because of how many people that can be fit on to one plane as opposed to driving in a van or small car. Turning the lights off more when you leave a room would definitely have a huge impact on how much energy you use in your home. Maybe you should talk to your parents about eating more organic food as well.