Calculating your Ecological Footprint (activity 1)

Calculate your Ecological Footprint by using the EPA calculators.

1. How many Earths does it take to support your lifestyle? (that is, if everyone lived like you we would need ___ Earths)
2. What is your Ecological Footprint in hectares? (This means that it will take that much land to produce the things you use and to absorb the waste you create. One hectare is equal to one soccer field)
3. How does your footprint compare to the rest of the class? Graph the Ecological Footprints of your class.
4. Download the Ecological Footprint of nations banner (Adobe PDF file, 1046KB or 1MB) and place a coloured dot on the footprint that represents your Ecological Footprint size.
5. Draw an outline of your footprint to scale and compare with others in the class. Use a scale of 1 global hectare to 3 centimetres.
6. Look at the results at the top of the quiz, what is the largest component of your footprint?
7. If you answer "never" or "infrequently" to question 2 of the calculator, what do you think the answer to question 3 would be? Why?
8. Redo the quiz and try to make your footprint smaller (this quiz is based on averages so it may be difficult).
9. Where could you achieve the biggest reductions to your Ecological Footprint?

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