Energy Lesson 8 : Leaving Smaller Footprints

Safety Precautions: Use caution when slicing the apple.

1. Conduct “Imagine the Earth as an Apple” demonstration.

a. Show students an apple as a model of the Earth.

b. Cut the apple into four pieces. Three pieces represent the Earth’s oceans—places where humans cannot live.

c. The remaining quarter represents all of the land area on Earth.

d. Cut the quarter in half. The one-eighth portion represents the poles, the deserts, the lakes, the rivers, and the high mountains, where humans cannot live for longer than brief periods.

e. Cut the remaining one-eighth into four pieces. Three pieces represent areas that are too hot, too cold, too dry, too wet, too steep, or too barren to grow food, along with those places where we could grow food, but which we have covered over for other uses, like cities and roads.

f. Peel the skin off the remaining 1/32 of your apple. This tiny sliver of skin represents all of the places on the Earth’s surface where we can and do grow food.

2. What is an ecological footprint? Define Ecological Footprint using the Ecological Footprint overhead transparency.

A person’s ecological footprint represents the amount of land and sea needed to produce all of the food, materials, and energy he or she consumes and all the waste he or she produces. When added together, the estimate of everybody’s ecological footprint should be less than the total amount of usable land and sea on Earth. Otherwise, in the long term our way of life is not sustainable.

Sustainability is maintaining a resource or system so that it doesn’t degrade. Sustainability also means considering all economic, environmental, and social costs and benefits of an activity, instead of only one type of cost. A sustainable society includes a healthy environment, social equity, and a strong economy. Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of the future to meet its needs.

Calculating our ecological footprint is one way to assess how our habits impact the Earth.

Why is estimating our ecological footprint important?

Calculating an ecological footprint is a technique used to assess how the way we live affects the planet. We can compare our ecological footprint to the footprints of other individuals, regions, and countries to determine if the way we are living is sustainable.

3. What is your ecological footprint? 

Have students use What Is Your Ecological Footprint? student activity and an online ecological footprint calculator (http://www.myfootprint.org) to assess their impact on the environment.

Have students compare their footprints to those of their classmates and the average person in the United States, other countries, and the world. Discuss the results.

Ask students to make three small changes to reduce their footprint. Have students go back to the quiz and change their answer to three of the questions.

4. Will reducing your footprint decrease your quality of life?

Explain that reducing one’s ecological footprint does not necessarily mean reducing the quality of one’s life. It does mean using energy and resources more efficiently and wisely as we improve the quality of our lives. Becoming aware of the impact we make is an important first step toward stewardship of a sustainable environment.

A steward of the environment protects and/or manages the environment. Energy conservation, energy efficiency, and pollution prevention actions are all possible ways we can be stewards of Michigan’s environment.

5. Students examine the data they recorded in My Environmental Diary assigned in Lesson 1.

Organize students into groups to share the electricity-saving actions they tried (question 7) and discuss their results (questions 14-16).

6. Groups of students share their Week 2 Personal Actions data from My Environmental Diary and compare it to their ecological footprints for each category (food, mobility, shelter, goods/services) from the What is Your Ecological Footprint student activity

In which areas of your lifestyle could you decrease your environmental impacts? [Answers will vary.] 

What choices can you make or actions can you take that will reduce your energy and resource consumption and impact on the environment? [Energy conservation, energy efficiency, or pollution prevention actions are possibilities.]

Assign students to make a list of five actions they could take to reduce their ecological footprints on the Five Actions I Could Take to Reduce My Ecological Footprint student activity page.

7. Summary understandings.

Energy and product choices as well as personal actions have direct and indirect economic, social, and environmental impacts.

Ecological impacts can be estimated by calculating an ecological footprint.

Choosing to conserve energy, increase energy efficiency, and prevent pollution can reduce environmental impacts.

Review major student learnings from the unit:

• All people use renewable and non-renewable energy and resources to meet their basic needs and to improve their material standard of living.

• Current Michigan residents use more energy resources per capita than did past generations.

• Energy and product choices have direct and indirect economic, social, and environmental consequences that affect everyone.

• To make renewable and non-renewable energy resources available for human use, the energy resource usually has to be processed, transported, and transformed; which also require energy and create pollution.

• Energy conservation and energy efficiency save money, reduce energy consumption, and prevent pollution of Michigan’s air, water, and land.

• Pollution prevention strategies (reduce, reuse, and recycle) can help conserve energy and resources and protect Michigan’s environment.

• People can use a variety of tools (e.g., product life cycle assessments and ecological footprint calculators) and data collection and analysis, through surveys and diaries to make decisions about their energy and product choices and personal actions.

• A sustainable future depends on personal choices and actions, the efficient use and conservation of energy and resources, the use of renewable energy sources whenever possible, and the development of new environmentally friendly technologies and government policies.

Through your choices and actions, you can make a difference! Please make a conscious effort to keep the Great Lake’s State—GREAT!