Ecological Footprint Assignment

Ecological Footprint Assignment

My Ecological footprint score was 12.27.

Comparison

  • 8.7 – Bana
  • 7.9 – Ben
  • 6.8 – Dreadon
  • 12.45 – Dylan
  • 7.45 – Justin
  • 7.45 – Kavyan
  • 11.3 – Colin
  • 12 – Dylan
  • 8.59 – Kalayla
  • 8.65 – Ronan
  • 7.2 – Clara

Compared to most of the other students, my score was on the higher side. This was because my family owns a second house that we rent out to a different family, and this added an extra 400 points, or 4 hectares. Otherwise, my score would have been 8.27 which is a lot closer to the average score.

Ten actions that increase the size of my footprint

  1. I take long showers
  2. My family owns a second house that we rent out to a different family
  3. I forget to turn off the lights when I leave a room
  4. I spend a big portion of my day on electronics
  5. Only about half of our household cleaners are environmentally friendly
  6. My family buys some prepackaged snacks
  7. My family does the laundry with warm water
  8. My family waters our garden very often
  9. Not a lot of the food my family eats is locally grown
  10. My family eats quite a bit of meat

5 actions I took to reduce the size of my footprint and how?

  1. I began taking shorter showers, because before this assignment my showers would last around 15 minutes! I was able to cut down my shower time by setting a timer. Now my shower time has cut down to ten minutes, but I will continue practicing because I think I can still do better.
  2. Whenever I would leave a room, I would always forget to turn off the lights. This would drain an unnecessary amount of energy. To help with this problem I put sticky notes on all doors with reminders on them to turn off the lights. Until this becomes a habit, I will keep the sticky notes on my doors.
  3. My family used to always do our laundry with warm water, but that uses up more energy. So, for two weeks I did the laundry with cold water to see if there was any difference in cleanliness. To my surprise, the cold water washed the clothes just as well as the warm water.
  4. When my mom would clean the house, only about half of the cleaners were environmentally friendly. So, me and mom went to store to buy new cleaners that were better for the environment. We disposed of the old ones by giving them to our friends, because they use them.
  5. I really wanted to reduce screen time, but because of school, I already spend a large majority of my day on my laptop. Also looking at a screen can be very straining for the eyes, and I don’t want my eyesight to worsen. So, in my free time, instead of going on my phone, I read a book, or sometimes practiced my drawing.

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

It was simple for me to do the laundry with cold water, as I already know how to do the laundry, and all I had to do was change the setting to cold water. It was also easy for me to change our cleaners to environmentally friendly ones, because all I had to do was buy new ones and get rid of old ones.

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

Personally, I had trouble cutting down my shower time. I used to always take showers around 15 minutes and this was a big change, so I had to really try harder to improve. I also found it quite difficult to reduce my screen time. It was a big difference to go from always going on my phone in my free time, to none at all. Honestly, I improved very little, however this is still something I want to improve, so I will slowly and gradually work on it every day.

Describe the steps you plan to take in the future.

This assignment was a very eye-opening experience for me. It taught me about the impact my actions can create on the environment. Although some of my plans fell through, I will continue to work on them because there is still a lot more space for growth.

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