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 (Mooresville, North Carolina, USA)
My name is Noah, I go to Mooresville High School, and I am 15 years old. My carbon footprint amounts were:
Transportation: 694 kgs
Home: 2,577 kgs
Food: 2,921 kgs
Purchases: 356 kgs
My total carbon footprint was 6,548 kgs.
My total was below my regions average which was 15,918, which I was actually very surprised about. I thought that my footprint would be at the average or a little bit above. I expected the majority of my footprint to come from transportation because my family and I drive around a lot but actually that was my second lowest value. The majority of my footprint came from food which isn’t surprising since my family eats a lot. From this part of the activity I learned that the food that you consume and what you use to consume it can affect the environment a lot more that you would expect. In the future I can use food scraps as compost instead of throwing it away, and I can also use a reusable water bottle more often. In my house we can use less energy by using fans more often instead of the AC, and turning off the lights when we don’t need them anymore.