Climate Change Collection > 37

Name of Resource: Climate Change Calculator
Climate Change Theme:Carbon Calculator
Sponsoring Organization: American Forests
Intended use:Background Material, Learning Activity
Intended audience:Educators and Learners

Description:This is a fairly straightforward and interesting activity for estimating one's individual/household contribution to CO2 emissions. The site also gives students a more concrete idea of their impact by calculating the number of trees that would need to be planted each year to counteract individual/household CO2 emissions.

Summary of Reviews

Reviewer: morrill.html 5 stars
Comments:Hands-on activity that show us how we each contribute to the greenhouse effect.
Read entire review:link text (Acrobat (PDF) 57kB Jun21 05)

Reviewer: butcher.html 4 stars
· I wasn't sure what the necessary input should be for some items. For example, estimating the number of flights you take per year (is that roundtrip, per leg, etc?)
· Students will very likely have difficulty estimating some of the numbers without prior legwork done at home with their parents (e.g., collecting the average amount of mileage put on the family vehicle and/or its average fuel efficiency). Although there are convenient tools for estimating average household and individual contributions, this takes away from the personal relevance of the exercise (using averages, all students will arrive at basically the same estimates).
· Educators could assign students to collect bits of data from their households with parental help before using the calculator in class. Or, the calculator could be used as a prediction activity where students estimate the amount of CO2 emissions for average individuals and households and compare these estimates to calculated averages.