Ecological Footprint Activity - NJCTL

www.njctl.org 5th Grade PSI Human Impacts on Earth

Ecological Footprint Activity

5th Grade PSI

Teacher’s Notes:

Experimental Question:

What demand do I place on the Earth?

What can I do to reduce my impact on Earth?

Purpose:

In this activity, you will examine the positive and negative impacts of humans on the

environment and you will calculate your ecological footprint. Finally, you will determine

ways to reduce the size of your own ecological footprint.

Materials:

Graph Paper

Markers or colored pencils

Procedure:

Day 1

Introduction

1. Have students trace their feet on a sheet of graph paper and calculate the area

of their footprint.

2. Lead a class discussion on how humans leave footprints on the Earth and our

environment. Brainstorm ways that humans affect our environment.

3. Explain that our ecological footprint is a measure of our impact on the

environment.

4. Students will list their own activities within their footprint. Encourage students to

have both positive and negative impacts on their footprints.

5. Instruct student to estimate what portion of the footprint is responsible for the

following areas: Water, Transportation, Energy, Food and Garbage.

Activity 1 – How much Earth is there?

1. Ask students to estimate how many people are on the Earth. As of 8/2013 there

were approximately 7.2 billion people (http://www.worldometers.info/world-

population/).

http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/

http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/


2. Hand out “How much Earth is there?” worksheet. Lead students in figuring out

how much land is available to support each person. Answers below:

29 billion acres

4 acres per person

We currently overshoot Earth’s capacity by 1.8 acres or 45%.

1.44 Earths {(5.8 acres x 7.2 billion people) / 29 billion acres}

1 acre per person

3. Give students the Ecological Footprint Worksheet to complete as homework.

The information collected will be used in the following activities.

Day 2

Activity 2 – Our Ecological Footprints

1. As a class discuss and review the information recorded on the Ecological

Footprint Worksheet.

2. Pass out the Water, Transportation, Energy, Food and Garbage worksheets.

3. Read out the responses for the number of flushes as students record them on

their charts or record them as a class on the board, overhead, computer, etc.

4. Once all the data is recorded have the student answer the questions on the

worksheet. You can choose for them to do this individually or as a group.

5. Repeat this process for the other areas.

6. Lead a class reflection on the data from the 5 areas. Identify trends and

surprises.

Day 3

Day 4: Activity 3 – My Ecoplan

1. Students will select one of the 5 areas they would like to make some

improvements and changes to reduce their ecological footprint.

2. Students may want to calculate their individual ecological footprint. These are a

few websites for students to calculate their footprints:

http://footprint.wwf.org.uk/

http://www.myfootprint.org/

http://www.earthday.org/footprint-calculator?gclid=CI6qxvqd7rgCFY87MgodunsAkw

http://footprint.wwf.org.uk/

http://www.myfootprint.org/

http://www.earthday.org/footprint-calculator?gclid=CI6qxvqd7rgCFY87MgodunsAkw


How Much Earth is There? Name: _________________________

5th Grade PSI Science

There are 126 billion acres on Earth. However, 97 billion acres are covered by non-productive oceans, deserts, ice caps and human settlement. There are also 29 billion acres of productive oceans. How many acres are left to support the human population? _____________________________ There are 7.2 billion people on Earth. How many acres per person are available? _____________________________ On average, each human consumes 5.8 acres annually. By how much do humans overshoot Earth’s carrying capacity? List this as a number and as a percent. _____________________________ ____________________________ If every human consumes 5.8 acres annually, how many Earth are needed to support

the population?

_____________________________ Humans are only one species on Earth. If we left 75% of the planet wild for the other 25 million species present, how many acres per person would be available? _____________________________


Ecological Footprint Worksheet Name: _________________________


Water

Record the number of times you flush the toilet in one day.

______________________________________________________________________

Transportation

How do you get to school and how many miles is it?

Mode of Transportation: __________________________________________________

Miles of Trip: ___________________________________________________________

Energy

Record on the chart how many hours you used the following items. If there is an item

you used that was not listed add it in the blank spaces.

Device Hours Used

Television

Video Games

Cell Phone

Computer

MP3 Player/Radio

Food

Record what you ate for breakfast, lunch or dinner.

______________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________

How many servings of the following did you eat?

Food Servings

Meat

Grains

Fruits/Vegetables

Dairy

Other:


Garbage

Most things we eat come in a package, list items from your meal above that came in

packages.

______________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________

Fill in the chart below. Record the number of items that you threw away, recycled or

reused.

Threw Away Recycled Re-used

Plastic

Glass

Metal

Paper

Food

Other


Ecological Footprint Reflection – Water Name: _________________________


Complete the chart below with how many times your class flushed the toilet.

# of

flushes

# of students

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

1. What was the average number of flushes for your class?

___________________________________________________________________

2. The average toilet uses 3.6 gallons per flush. Using the class average of flushes,

how many gallons of water were used by your class yesterday?

___________________________________________________________________

3. An average sized swimming pool can hold 30,000 gallons, what percentage of

the pool did your class fill?

___________________________________________________________________

4. If all the toilets used the new standard of 1.6 gallons per flush how many gallons

of water would be conserved?

___________________________________________________________________

5. What other sources of water did you use yesterday?

___________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________


6. Why should we be concerned with saving water?

___________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________

7. What are some of the places/items that use water where you might be able to

conserve water?

___________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________


Ecological Footprint Reflection – Transportation Name: ______________________


Complete the chart below with how your class gets to school, distance traveled and the

average length of trip.

Form of Transportation # of students Miles of Trip Average Trip

Walk

Bike

Bus

Public Transportation

Car

Other

Complete the chart analyzing each form of transportation

Environmental Impact

Energy Source/Fuel

Type

Rate of

Travel

Cost to Operate

Impact on the Land

Benefits

Walking

Bike

Bus

Public Transit

Car


1. What was the most common mode of transportation used to get to school?

___________________________________________________________________

2. What was the least common mode of transportation used to get to school?

___________________________________________________________________

3. Which mode of transportation had the furthest trip to get to school?

___________________________________________________________________

4. Which mode of transportation had the biggest impact on the Earth? Why?

___________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________

5. Which mode of transportation had the smallest impact on the Earth? Why?

___________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________


Ecological Footprint Reflection – Energy Name ___________________________


Complete the chart below of which entertainment devices your class used.

Device # of students

who used

Hours Used

Television

Video Games

Cell Phone

Computer

MP3 Player/Radio

1. What device did the class use the most?

___________________________________________________________________

2. Other than entertainment, how else is energy used in your daily life?

___________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________

3. How does your use of entertainment devices impact your environmental

footprint? What resources are used?

___________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________

4. What can you do to conserve energy to reduce your environmental footprint?

___________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________


Ecological Footprint Reflection – Food Name ________________________


Complete the chart below with how many servings of food the students in your class

ate.

Food # of Servings

Meat

Grains

Fruits/Vegetables

Dairy

Other:

Other:

Other:

1. Which food group do you think created the largest ecological impact? Explain

your answer.

___________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________

2. What types of food were in the other category? How do these foods impact your

footprint?

___________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________

3. What are some ways that you could reduce your food footprint?

___________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________


Ecological Footprint Reflection – Garbage Name ___________________________


Record the number of items that your class threw away, recycled or reused.

Threw Away Recycled Re-used

Plastic

Glass

Metal

Paper

Food

Other

1. What items were thrown away the most? What percentage of the total garbage was

thrown away?

______________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________

2. What percentage of garbage was recycled? What percentage of garbage was

reused?

______________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________

3. How could you reduce your garbage footprint?

______________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________


My Ecoplan Name ________________________________


1. What are your thoughts about the size of your ecological footprint?

______________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________

2. What area of your footprint would you like to see change? Why?

______________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________

3. What are 5 ways that you could do to make a positive change to your footprint?

______________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________

4. Pick one of your ideas and describe how it would help reduce your ecological

footprint.

______________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________

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Ecological Footprint Activity - NJCTL