What is the Carbon Footprint?
The carbon footprint measures the impact of our activities on the environment, and how it affects the climate change. It shows us the amount of greenhouse gases produced in our daily lives. The carbon footprint is a measurement of all the greenhouse gases we individually produce and it has units of tonnes (or kg) of carbon dioxide (CO2) equivalent.
According to the cartoon, the driver has realized that using the car to go to the garden center for a tree produces greenhouse gases that increase his/her carbon footprint. Therefore he/she needs to go back for another tree in order to counteract the amount of greenhouse gases released. The story says that very
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often we are not conscious about the effect of our daily activities on environment.
Activity 1 ______________________________________________________________
If you are at school try to discuss with your classmate if you have ever been in a situation where you have realized that your actions have been more proenvironment than against it. If you are at home do the same with a member of your family. Try to give 2 or 3 examples. _______________________________________________________________
But, the big question is: do you know how big your carbon footprint is?. Here we propose you an easy activity to find it out. Working in groups, you’ll need
to
enter
in
this
website
and
follow
the
instructions
http://independent.footprint.wwf.org.uk/ . This website is an initiative of the nongovernmental
organization
(NGO)
WWF.
If
you
visit
its
website
(http://www.panda.org/) you’ll see that its main aim is to stop the degradation of the planet’s natural environment and to build a future in which humans live in harmony with nature, by:
Conserving the world’s biological diversity
Ensuring that the use of renewable natural resources is sustainable
Promoting the reduction of pollution and wasteful consumption.
Before doing this activity, read activity 2, because you’ll need to write down data from the website in order to do activity 2.
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Activity 2
1. Which fields is the test focused on?
2. Why does the amount of fish and meat you eat have an important impact on your carbon footprint?
3. Can you reduce your food footprint by buying more organic and local food?
4. What is the best way to reduce emissions from your car?
5. Travelling from London to Edinburgh the amount of CO2 released by a plane user, by a car user, by a train user, and by a coach user is:
6. How much can you reduce the amount of your heating energy by turning down one degree your thermostat? 7. What’s the percentage of energy reduction for lighting when using energy efficient bulbs?
8. Why is it so important to compost our kitchen and garden waste?
9. How many hours would we be able to run an energy efficient bulb by recycling just one aluminium can?
10. And finally, write down the results of your test:
a. How many planets is your footprint? Joan Serra Departament de Tecnologia IES Joaquim Bau No reproduir total o parcialment sense el permís de l’IES Joaquim Bau
b. What is the percentage of your footprint in each field (food, travel, home, stuff)?
c. How many tones of CO2 do you produce per year?
Activity 3 ______________________________________________________________
Working in groups research about these topics:
Kyoto Protocol
Global warming and climate change
Kinds of clean energies
In each topic you must use at least a book, a magazine, a website and the presentations displayed on the library walls. _______________________________________________________________
Activity 4 ______________________________________________________________
According to the topic you have researched, do a Power Point presentation where you explain your conclusions and the relationship between your research and the answers in activity 2 . _______________________________________________________________
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Activity 5 ______________________________________________________________ Show and explain your presentation to the other groups.
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