Both Oakland High School and Bishop O'dowd High school are located in Oakland, California, USA. Oakland High is an Oakland Public School, while O'Dowd is a private Catholic school. When comparing these two schools, there are some noticeable differenced between the average carbon footprint. Oakland High's average total footprint was 9853kg with their highest impact coming from their homes. O'Dowd's average footprint was 16295kg with their highest impact from transportation. It should be noted that even though homes and food were not O'Dowd's highest sources of carbon, both of these categories had higher carbon footprints than their counterparts at Oakland High. Basically, O'dowd has a higher mean carbon footprint than Oakland High in every category. One idea I have for explaining this is that on average, the families of students who attend Bishop O'Dowd have higher income than those who attend Oakland High. This could possibly explain the large discrepancy between transportation footprints (8191kg vs 2373kg) as wealtheir families would tend to have their own cars rather t han take public transportation. Increased income would also allow families to take more trips and trips to further away places, therefore increasing their transportation.

Very interesting point, Kendall! I live in Florida in a city where everything is spread out due to urban sprawl and transportation is a huge issue! What are the stats for the private school vs the public school... how many students in each and what percentage walk/ride bikes/take the bus vs get to school via their own vehicle? I'm sure you're correct about the private school students traveling more in general too. Additionally, they probably have larger houses (more to heat and cool, more light bulbs, etc) and more money to spend on houses, electric bills, food bills, and clothing... all of which would increase their CO2 kg/year. What are some solutions? It would be interesting if ALL schools would work more toward having their own gardens (can use the foods/herbs/etc in the lunch foods) but private schools should definitely be able to afford it.

I definitely agree with you about all of the additions to carbon footprint that come with higher income, from larger houses to more purchased goods. Unfortunately statistics are unavailable for students' means of transportation, so I do not have information about that. Also, I believe the stats given for the total carbon footprint and subdivisions of this are all averages. I know that not every student from each of the schools is participating in this program, so the numbers may not be completely accurate as the mean is derived from just a sample of the student body. It would be great if all schools could have a garden. My school has an area called the living lab where we have native plants, as well as a vegetable garden and beehive. We are able to use a lot of food we grow in our school lunches, as you suggested. We also use the space as an outdoor classroom where we are able to learn about many different factors of the natural world and ecosystems that are native to our region.