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 >
What We Should Talk About
We already know what the environmental problems are (climate change, limited resources) and some of the things we should do to fix them (reduce carbon dioxide emissions, reuse plastic). What we should be discussing is the best way to get people to go from A to B. For example, there's a drought going on in California. How can we get people to use less water?
When people take a shower, there are these things that you can put on your shower head and only half of the amount of water is coming out. My family collects cold water instead of letting it run down the drain and we can use that water to water our plants. My dad put in water conserving toilet flushes which drastically decrease the amount of water that is being used.