Miami University Daily Habits to Determine Their Ecological Footprint Questions

Students will answer questions on a survey of their daily habits to determine their ecological footprint, which estimates their use of environmental services.

Resources

• ‘Earth Overshoot Day’ Is This Week (????????) – Read this article before you calculate your ecological footprint.
• Ecological Footprint Calculator (????????) – Calculate your ecological footprint

Goals

Students will:
• Explore the idea of environmental impact or “ecological footprint” by estimating their use of major environmental services;
• Compare their use of environmental services to people in other countries;
• Reflect on the sustainability and distributional justice of their environmental impact.

Activities

Visit the website of the Ecological Footprint calculator (????????)(http://www.footprintcalculator.org) and log in as you prefer. For each question, take the opportunity to answer the detailed questions, which improves your accuracy. Take the time to think of what you normally do on a daily basis over the course of the last year. When you record your basic results, press button for details (you do not need to donate!) and write down your data for your report. If you repeat the survey with different choices that you think you might be able to sustain then you will have more to reflect on, especially trying to lower your impact through food and transportation choices. Check out the “Explore Solutions” link for more to reflect upon.

Submission Requirements

Each student must submit an original 1-2 page report to Canvas that includes (A) a summary of your detailed footprint scores and (B) a discussion of your impact and ways to change it. Please number each of your responses to correspond with numbers in sections A and B. If you can, please include a screenshot of your footprint scores.

Include the following:

A. Footprint Data

1. The “if everyone lives like you” number of Earths required. And your “overshoot day.”
2. Each of your consumption category gha for food, shelter, mobility, goods, services.
3. Your ecological footprint (gha)
4. Your carbon footprint (CO2 tons/yr)
5. Your carbon footprint (% of total footprint)

B. Discussion of your impact

1. Which of your choices make the largest impact?
2. Could everyone in the world eat like you?
3. Reflect: How are your choices affecting other people in other places? What changes could you make that are more sustainable and just?

Grading rubric

• 10 points – the response includes all of the required data from Section A and follows the correct formatting
• 10 points – the response includes a thoughtful reflection on questions posed in Section B of this assignment and follows the correct formatting