Ecological Footprint

 

The Plan
My Footprint 12.16
My Peers Ronan – 8.65

Glen – 15.2

Bana – 8.7
Identify a minimum of ten actions that currently increase the size of your footprint. – having a second vacation home

– our family uses 2 cars

– I need a soccer ball for soccer

– my screen time

– the length of my showers/baths

– the number of clothes I actually wear

– the amount of garbage I use on a typical day

– the number of times we wash our car/ water the garden

– eating none organic food

– some of the food that I eat was grown in BC
Identify a minimum of five actions from those ten that you will try changing to reduce the size of your footprint and explain why you chose these. My Screen time.

I chose this because I already wanted to change the amount of screen time I use and this just gives me a little nudge.

 

The amount of garbage I use on a typical day

I chose this because I want to reduce the amount of garbage I use so I can be a small part in saving the earth

 

The number of times we wash our car/ water the garden

I chose this because I find that we wash our car and water our grass/ garden to much especially because we live in BC, which is known for its rain. Our car doesn’t need to be washed that often anyways

 

The length of my showers/baths

I think that I use too much water when having a shower/ bath so I’m going to try and minimize it.

 

The number of clothes I actually wear

I find that I use about half of the number of clothes I wear so if I wear more of them I will feel like they were in good use.
Describe specifically how you will try changing these five actions to work to reduce your footprint. I will firstly start by pursuing other interests instead of going on my phone laptop all the time. I will also start using even more containers for my lunches and not waste anything that I could use later to reduce the amount of garbage I am producing. I will also minimize the amount of water I am using for hygiene and to water plants/ wash the cars. Last, but not least I will rotate through all my clothes to get used out of all of my clothes.

 

 

The Reflection

  1. Describe some of the changes that were easy for you to make and why.

Changing 4 out of the 5 was fairly easy. Changing my screen time was very easy because I already wanted to limit it and I only needed to use it for some homework. Changing the number of clothes I actually wear was very easy as well I just had to rotate the clothes I wore. Thirdly I minimized my showers very easily as well. Last, but not least, I limited my garbage by using containers more frequently, and not wasting items objects I can reuse.

 

  1. Describe some of the changes that were difficult for you to make and why.

The hardest change for me was to change how many times we wash our car and water our gardens/ Grass. This was because it wasn’t fully in my control. However, I proved my case to my parents about why we should water them less. They agreed in the end so I was able to improve that.

 

  1. Describe some of the obstacles you encountered.

I found it hard to get the motivation to do some of these and to push myself out of my comfort zone. I also found getting my parents to water and wash the car less a bit of a challenge, because it wasn’t really in my control. In the end, everything went my way, so it was very successful.

 

  1. Describe the steps you plan to take in the future.

I will use all of the strategies I listed earlier to help me work on my footprint. I will start off slowly for example I will start by limiting my screen time to an hour but then slowly decreasing the minutes. I plan to do the same with the other 4, except I will just keep rotating my clothes and I will keep asking my parent to water the grass/ garden and wash the car less.