Chicago Botanic Garden
Calculating Your Carbon Footprint
Unplugging from technology for one day per week will decrease your carbon footprint—are you up to the challenge? Part two in a series of three allows individuals to explore their personal carbon footprints. By first taking a quiz at home...
National Park Service
Reduce Our Carbon Footprint, Let’s Compost!
Roll up your sleeves and get a little dirty with this elementary and middle school compost lesson. All you need is a large plastic container, a couple old newspapers, some organic waste, and a few hundred worms and you're ready to start...
British Council
Family Footprint
Working in small groups, pupils design a questionnaire to survey classmates about their carbon footprints. Then, after discussing the activity with group members, they share with the class an interesting fact they learned.
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Classroom Activities: What Is My Carbon Footprint?
Everyone leaves an impression on the world—some more than others. An interactive lesson has learners analyze their lifestyles and the impact they have on the environment. The analysis includes travel, food, and energy categories and ends...
New York Hall of Science
My Carbon Footprint: High School Curriculum
The earth has a love-hate relationship with carbon. Learners complete a series of nine lessons that begin with an examination of the role of carbon in Earth's systems. They then relate changes in climate and weather to changes in the...
UAF Geophysical Institute
Carbon Footprint
Your young environmentalists can calculate their carbon footprint and discuss ways to reduce it with a worksheet about climate change. After reading a handout about what impact one's carbon footprint can have on the environment, kids...
National Park Service
What Can We Do?
Motivate young conservationists to stand up and make a change. After learning about the efforts in Cascade Nation Park to reduce carbon emissions in order to preserve the wilderness, young scholars work in groups creating action plans...
Chicago Botanic Garden
Personal Choices and the Planet
How big is your footprint? Activity three culminates the series by having groups complete carbon footprint audits with people in their schools and/or around the districts. Groups then gather their data, create a presentation including...
National Academy of Sciences
Lights at Night Webquest
Help learners find ways to become more efficient energy consumers. To start, individuals research how different countries address energy efficiency and then analyze their own carbon footprint. They use their research to identify ways to...
Population Connection
The Carbon Crunch
Carbon is in the air; should we care? Teach the class why it is important to pay attention to carbon levels and how the world population and various countries across the globe affect the carbon levels in the atmosphere. High schoolers...
Curated OER
High School EcoHouse Curriculum
How has the level of carbon dioxide changed over recent years, and what is contributing it? Groups work together to research and present their findings in a creative way. Also built into the lesson is a visit to a sustainable house, but...
Curated OER
Streetfilms' Moving Beyond the Automobile
This is an exceptional series that you can use in an environmental or engineering unit. There are four lessons: "Sustainable Transportation," "Designing for Safety," "Changing the Landscape," and "Engaging in Policy." Each lesson...
Curated OER
Reducing Your Carbon Footprint to Help the Environment
Students examine their environment. In this carbon footprint lesson, students look at how he/she impacts their environment with the waste they create and the energy they use. As a class they read an article and listen to podcasts on how...
Curated OER
Carbon Footprint Estimator
Young scholars discover what a Carbon Footprint represents. For this sustainable lifestyle lesson, students determine their Carbon Footprint as an individual and as a class. Young scholars use a the Internet to calculate how many earths...
Teach Engineering
Global Climate Change
The greenhouse effect and its relationship to global warming is the focus of an activity that asks class member to consider the effects of climate change on weather. Pupils work with their families to determine their carbon footprints...
Polar Trec
Can Carbon Dioxide Act Like a Greenhouse Gas?
Ninety-seven percent of scientists who study climate agree that human activity is warming the planet. Learners explore carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas, a gas causing this warming, through a hands-on experiment. Once complete, they...
Chicago Botanic Garden
Calculating Your Ecological Footprint
You can lower your ecological footprint by recycling! Lesson four in this series of five has individuals, through the use of a computer, calculate their ecological footprints. Through discussions and analysis they determine how many...
Beyond Benign
Leave Only Footprints
You don't need to tip-toe around an enlightening resource. Young environmentalists learn about ecological footprints in the fourth lesson plan of 15. Answering a questionnaire helps them see how their own families and homes affect the...
Curated OER
Calculating Your Foodometer
Young scholars explore environmental issues by completing a food production class activity. For this carbon footprint lesson, students discuss the types of foods they eat, where they come from and what types of methods are used to...
Chicago Botanic Garden
Personal Choices and the Planet
The last activity in the series of four has individuals determine steps they can take to reduce their carbon footprints and then analyze their schools' recycling programs. Through a sustainability audit, they identify how and where their...
National Wildlife Federation
An Inconvenient Truth in the Classroom
Global warming — what a hot topic! A thorough unit challenges learners to research, read, explore, and write about carbon, its role and increasing nature in our atmosphere, and how global warming is affecting lives and environments...
Redefining Progress
Have and Have-Not
Is there a correlation between a country's wealth and the extent of its ecological footprint? What exactly constitutes an ecological footprint, and how does one country stack up against the rest? This is a unique lesson to incorporate...
Curated OER
Plugged in to CO2
Students use a meter to measure the energy used and carbon produced by electronics and appliances. In this environmental science and technology lesson, students use a Kill-A-Watt meter to determine the electricity used by everyday...
Montana State University
Climb into Action!
Climate change affects even the largest and intimidating of landforms—even Mount Everest! A resource helps teach learners the connection between global climate change and its effects on Earth. Activities include videos, class discussion,...