Calculate your school's Ecological Footprint (activity 8)

Task: Calculate your school Ecological Footprint. This activity will require teamwork! The data you will need to calculate your school Ecological Footprint might already be available from the school office, or it may not exist and you will have to survey others to find the answers.

Visit the Ecological Footprint for your school section of the EPA website and open the calculator to see where the data will be entered, and to read the tips at each data entry point.

Access the guide to answering the questions in the calculator (from the Ecological Footprint for your school web page link above).

Divide the class into teams of three to four students. Assign each team a data collection task. Some tasks may require more than one team to collect the data (food and travel):

• School buildings and grounds: Find out the school land and building area, and electricity, gas and water consumption for a year.
• Food: Survey the students and staff about how often they have meat in their lunches.
• Travel: Survey the students and staff about how they get to and from school, and how far they travel.
• Excursions: Find how many excursions occur in one year at your school, the mode of transport used and the distance travelled.
• Goods: Find out how much paper is used and recycled, printed books purchased, computers in the school and printer cartridges used.
• Recycling and waste: Find out how much paper, cans and bottles, and IT equipment are recycled in a year.

Top