Calculate Your Ecological Footprint: Wet Lab Guide and Analysis

Name: Arjun Mahesh, Date: January 13, 2024 In this lab, you will collect data about your life and your resource consumption to measure your current ecological footprint. Then you will calculate a value for your ecological footprint, which represents the amount of land required to provide all the natural resources you use. You will then form a hypothesis about three changes you can make in your lifestyle to reduce your ecological footprint and then calculate the difference those changes would make. Be sure to: Follow safe practices during this investigation. Leave enough time to complete this lab; it will require more than two weeks. Materials Access to the Internet Procedure Part 1: Calculate Your Current Basic Ecological Footprint To prepare for this lab, follow Steps 1 and 2 below to access a quiz that will enable you to calculate your ecological footprint. Review the questions about your lifestyle and habits. 1. Click the "Ecological Footprint Calculator" link on the activity landing page. Then click the image of the computer screen. Choose the correct language in the top right corner. 2. Click "TAKE THE FIRST STEP" on the page that opens. 3. Click through the quiz and make notes about the types of information you will need to accurately respond to each question. Then spend a day or two making

observations about your lifestyle and asking questions of your family and friends to determine your habits. 4. Using the information you gathered, take the quiz to calculate your ecological footprint. For now, ignore the "ADD DETAILS TO IMPROVE ACCURACY" links that follow several of the questions. You will use them in a later section of this lab. 5. Complete the quiz by answering all the questions. Do not close the final window until you are ready to stop working on the lab. You do not need to enter your email address. You can choose "skip to view my results". 6. Explore the Results pages, including the information found by rolling over the orange circles labeled "i." Click the orange arrow to see more of your results. Then answer the questions about the results of your basic ecological footprint quiz in the Data for Part 1 section. Data for Part 1: Your Current Basic Ecological Footprint (9 points) Summarize your results for Part 1 here. 1. What was your personal Earth overshoot day? What does this mean? (1 point) My personal Earth Overshoot day was February 26. This means that by this date if everyone in the world lives like me then earth will run out of resources faster than people are using them. 2. If everyone on Earth lived the way you do (according to the basic information you gave), how many Earths would be needed to provide enough resources? (1 point) 6.4 Earths are required if everyone lives like me.

3. Click the "See Details" link on the Results page, then use the space below to draw the circle graph that appears. Include the numbers of global hectares (gha) that appear as you roll over each section of the graph, as well as the key and labels. (3 points) 4. Summarize the breakdown of your basic ecological footprint by land type. a. How many global hectares (gha) of Earth's area does it take to support you (your ecological footprint)? (1 point) 10.4 b. Rank the different categories of land types you require from greatest to least. (1 point) Carbon footprint, forest products, crapland, built-up land, fishing grounds, grazing lands

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c. How many tons of carbon dioxide are produced by your resource consumption? (1 point) 21.1 tons of carbon dioxide d. What percentage of your basic ecological footprint is your "carbon footprint"? (1 point) 70% Part 2: Calculate Your Current Detailed Ecological Footprint Now you will calculate a detailed ecological footprint for yourself. 1. Click the "Retake the Quiz" button or repeat Steps 1 and 2 from Part 1 if you need to log in to the site again. 2. Take the quiz again, but this time, click "ADD DETAILS TO IMPROVE ACCURACY" when it appears and answer the more specific questions. Be sure to save your answers before you advance to the next page. This will give you a detailed ecological footprint. Do not close the final window until you are ready to stop working on the lab. 3. Explore the Results page, including the information found by rolling over the orange circles labeled "i." Answer the questions about the results of your detailed ecological footprint quiz in the Data for Part 2 section. Data for Part 2: Your Current Detailed Ecological Footprint (6 points) Summarize your results for Part 2 here. 1. Record the values for your current basic and detailed footprints in the table. (2 points)

Topic Current basic footprint (values) Current detailed footprint (values) Earth overshoot day 26 feb 24 feb Number of Earths 6.4 6.6 Number of global hectares (gha) 10.4 10.7 Tons of carbon dioxide 23.5 23.5 2. Click the "See Details" link on the first results page, then use the space below to draw the new circle graph that appears. Include the numbers of global hectares (gha) that appear as you roll over each section of the graph, as well as the key and labels. (2 points)

3. Compare the new ranks of the categories of land types you require with the ones you require in your basic ecological footprint. Describe any changes. (1 point) My gha went up by 3 so an increase in carbon footprint. 4. What percentage of your detailed ecological footprint is your "carbon footprint"? How does this compare with the value from your basic ecological footprint? (1 point) It is 76 percent, it is very similar to the basic footprint too.

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Part 3: Your Experimental Ecological Footprint (5 points) You have seen how your typical lifestyle uses the resources on Earth. Now you are going to attempt to answer the question, "How can I reduce my ecological footprint?" 1. Click the "Explore Solutions" button at the bottom of the "How do your results compare to your country?" results page. Read about the changes it suggests and the impacts they would have. 2. Think of three specific, realistic changes you know you could make that would reduce your ecological footprint. (For example, you may be able to walk to school, but you will probably not be able to change how many people live in your home.) List these changes in the space below. (3 points). Every meal we cook we need to make sure to cook just enough for the 3 of us so no food goes to waste. And finally I can also ride my bike to school. We can use electricity only when required. 3. Develop a hypothesis about whether or how changing three of your habits would affect your ecological footprint. Write your hypothesis in the space below. (2 points) Doing these three things can affect my ecological footprint by reducing the amount of carbon dioxide I am emitting every year.

4. Make these changes to your lifestyle and habits for two weeks. You will describe your experience in the Data for Part 3 section. 5. Click the "Ecological Footprint Calculator" link on the activity landing page. Then click the image of the computer screen. Choose the correct language in the top right corner. Click "TAKE THE FIRST STEP" on the page that opens. Change your answers ac tually made for at least two weeks. Everything else should remain the same. Do not close this window yet. Data for Part 3: Your Experimental Ecological Footprint (5 points) Record your results for Part 3 here. 1. Use this table to summarize your experience with the three changes you made. (3 points) Change Challenges Benefits Cooking just enough Sometimes we ended cooking too less so we didn't eat enough This reduced our carbon footprint greatly by reducing food wastage Riding my Bike to school It wasn't easy and it was very time consuming Reduced carbon footprint by reducing air pollution Using electricity only when required A conscious effort had to be made to make sure to turn off lights and fans in rooms we didn’t need them in. We saved electricity which helped also reduce ecological footprint

2. Summarize the ways your changes in lifestyle and habits affected your Earth overshoot day and the number of Earths needed to support you, as well as the breakdown of your ecological footprint. (2 points) My change in these three habits increased my earth overshoot date to may 2 and the number of earths needed reduced to 4.3 Analyze Data and Draw Conclusions (15 points) 1. Ecological Footprint Data Analysis a. Fill in the table with the data from your current detailed footprint and your new detailed footprint, and then calculate the percent difference after your changes. (3 points) Topic Original detailed current footprint (values) New detailed footprint with changes (values) % difference (original — new) / original Earth overshoot day Feb 26 May 2 n/a Number of Earths 6.4 4 37.5 %

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Number of global hectares (gha) 10.4 9.5 8.6% Tons of carbon dioxide 23.5 14.5 38.3% b. Compare these two sets of rankings you generated for land types. (1 point) My carbon footprint land type went from 76% to 61% 2. Ecological Footprint Conclusions a. Summarize your results. Was your hypothesis supported or not supported? How do you know? (What data drives this statement?) (1 point) Yes my hypothesis was supported because my carbon footprint reduced heavily.

b. Were there any sources of error in your experiment? How could you improve it? (1 point) The reduction of certain activities is not directly measurable in this lab. It can only be measured in comparison to something else. Maybe to make this better, exact values of each of the activities that make up the carbon footprint can be recorded. 3. Your Ecological Footprint: A Global Perspective Go to the homepage of the Global Footprint Network by clicking the "Ecological Footprint Calculator" link on the activity landing page. Then click the icon in the upper left corner of the screen. Explore the information on the page. a. Which countries have an earlier Country Overshoot Day than the United States? Describe why you think that may be the case. (1 point) Countries with plenty available. Probably because they keep using a lot of unnecessary things which can increase their carbon footprint. b. Click the orange "DIVE INTO DATA!" link on the right-hand side of the home page about one third of the way down the page. A world map will appear. Beneath the map

are five links to different types of data that can be displayed. Below these links is a key that shows what the colors on the map mean. Explore several of the countries on the interactive maps to view data. Roll over the map with your cursor to find specific countries. Click on a country to display its data. Use the information on the page and in the maps to fill out this table. (5 points) Lab: Investigate Your Ecological Footprint 13/16 1.1.9 Copyright © 2023 Apex Learning Inc. Use of this material is subject to Apex Learning's Terms of Use. Any unauthorized copying, reuse, or redistribution is prohibited. Map data type Explain what this map shows (and what that means). United States (values) Argentina (values) Sudan (values) Ecological deficit/reserve Ecological footprint of a population exceeds biocapacity Ecological footprint greater 100-150% Biocapacity greater 50-100% Biocapacit y great 0-50% Total ecological footprint Demand human consumption places on biosphere 250m-1b 50m -100m 10m - 25m

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Ecological footprint per person Nation’s total ecological footprint divided by total population Greater than 6.7 3.4-5.1 Less than 1.7 Total biocapacity Area of biological land available to produce food Less than 1b 100m-250 m 25m-50m Biocapacity per person Total biocapacity divided by population 1.7-5 5-10 1-1.7 4. Ecological Footprint Impacts a. Do you think it is fair that some countries are taking more than their share of resources? Why or why not? (1 point) No I don’t thinks it's fair because that could lead to certain countries running out of resources faster than others.

b. What do you think needs to be done to ensure the health of our planet and the availability of resources for all its people? How do you think that plan could be enacted and enforced? (1 point) People should definitely take more efforts to be cautious in their approaches and laws can be enforced to avoid pollution. c. As one of the resource-rich people in the world, what would you think about a plan that would lower the standard of living for countries rich in resources to make resources last longer? (1 point) I would say that is a very good plan because having a high standard of lliving ois not absolutely necessary when the world might end. So this definitely is a good option.

1.1.9 LLLLLLLLab - Investigate Your Ecological Footprint (Wet lab) - Google Docs

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