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 >
Alisyn K (Mooresville, NC, USA)
My name is Alisyn and I live in a relatively small town in North Carolina. I am a 16 year old Junior in my high school. My total footprint was 44207, more than double the total for my region. I was under the average for all of the categories except for transportation, in which mine was about 9x more than. I can understand why I would be more than the average in this department, but it does not make sense for it to be 9 times larger. I travel back and forth between Texas twice a year by plane, which means four three-hour plane rides a year. One thing that did surprise me, was that I was under on my home average. As a family, we try to limit our technology use and we take short showers and turn off lights when not in use. My brother, however, does not see things the same way we do. He keeps his bedroom light on all of the time, takes 30 minute showers, and is on the computer practically 24/7. To decrease my over all footprint, I could begin taking more forms of public transportation, or car-pool with friends to limit the number of cars on the road.