What s my impact? Years 5 & 6

Transcription

1 What s my impact? Years 5 & 6 Teacher preparation Overarching learning goal: By participating in this lesson students build their understanding of wealth and consider the environmental, economical and social implications of their choices. Teacher content information: With a world population of 7 billion people and rising, we need to be concerned about the Earth s ability to provide us with all the things we need to live, and to absorb all the waste we produce. Your environmental footprint is a measure of your personal impact on the environment. It can be defined as the amount of the Earth s surface it takes to provide everything each person uses - food, water, energy, clothes, roads, buildings, etc. The larger the footprint, the more resources needed to support that lifestyle. The ecological footprints of most developed countries require more land than is available. People in Australia have a very large footprint. Based on one estimate, the average Australian has a footprint of 9.4 hectares (about the size of 14 average sports fields). If everyone on Earth lived like the average Australian, we would need at least three Earths to provide all the materials and energy we currently use and all the waste we produce. To be sustainable we need to reduce our footprint to approximately 2.2 hectares. The graph below shows a possible future scenario if we continue to consume the Earth's resources at the same rate. Page 1/5

2 Extra support: What is real wealth? Cheat Sheet Hot tip: Talk to students about why scientists have different predictions and measurements of environmental footprints. Teaching sequence 10 minutes - Introduce ecological footprints 40 minutes - Accessing our footprints 10 minutes - Reflection questions Work through this resource material in the following sequence: Step 1. Ecological Footprints Introduce students to the term ecological footprint. The EPA defines it as: Page 2/5

3 "A measure of resource consumption of human activities across the whole lifecycle of a product or service and converts this to the amount of land needed to supply the resources consumed and assimilate the waste generated." The important thing for students to understand is that an ecological footprint is a rough measure of the total amount of resources you consume based on your lifestyle. It then determines the amount of land required to produce the resources needed to support you. Hot tip: Use the analogy of walking in sand and leaving an imprint. The heavier you walk on the Earth the deeper the footprint will be. Ask students how this relates to needs and wants. Draw a very large footprint on the board with the title Areas that make up your footprint. As a class brainstorm, discuss what activities contribute to your ecological footprint. You may want to divide the footprint up into three main areas: Energy Using electrical or other powered devices including microwaves, phones, ipods, lights, hair dryers, heaters, air-conditioners, traveling in a car, tractor, bus or train, lawn mowers, televisions, computers, radios and refrigerators. Water Using water for drinking, in the home, growing food, cleaning. In the production of things we buy. It could be cleaning your hands, teeth or flushing the toilet. Waste What you use and no longer need. Page 3/5

4 This could be plastic and glass bottles, newspapers, packaging, old clothes, green waste and leftover food. You may need to explain to students that when they buy things, resources such as water and energy were used to create it. Step 2: Assessing Our Ecological Footprint Students are to complete the 'Measure Your Impact' activity on their Student Worksheet. Note: this lesson is not about gaining an exact measure of their footprint. What is more important is building an understanding of their personal resource use. Students are to think about the activities they have completed in the last 24 hours and think about the resources that were used to undertake these activities. Each student is to then rate each of their activities and associated resources in terms of the impact. Next, students can add up their total score to assess what size their footprint was for that particular day. Step 3: How Could You Improve Your Score? Have a class discussion about what activities have the biggest impacts. What changes could students make to their daily activities at school and in the home to improve their score? Thinking about our own behavior and the decisions we make is a great way for students to take control over their resource use. Ask student to complete reflection questions. Page 4/5

5 Powered by TCPDF ( Extension/Homework: 1. Into the future: Ask students to imagine what the world would be like if we continue to use more resources than we have. Students can write a story of living in the next century - the year Have we managed to reduce the amount of resources we use? 2. Digital versus manual footprint: Ask students to compare the results of the manual footprint that they completed in this activity with the results of a digital footprint calculator. Students could use this footprint calculator: ootprint/footprint_calculator/ 3. Homeprint: Students can calculate the environmental footprint of their home, recording how much water, energy and waste they use/produce in a day. Success Criteria Students understand that they have control over their personal ecological footprint. Student can explain the link between wealth, consumption and ethical purchasing. Page 5/5