Weekend Website #66: What’s Your Carbon Footprint

Every Friday I’ll send you a wonderful website that my classes and my parents love. I think you’ll find they’ll be a favorite of your students as they are of mine.

Age:

3rd-8th

Topic:

Ecology, science

Address:

Carbon Footprint Calculator

Review:

This is a fun, albeit simplistic approach to carbon counting. As a teacher, I find it a wonderfully simply way to deliver the message to students that the size of their carbon footprint matters. This site has a few easy fill-ins about family cars, travel and where the reader lives, then calculates an average carbon footprint. For example, when I answered the four or five easy questions about my home (with lots of prompts about ‘average’ which I can see students defaulting to), it gave me a rundown on my profile:

I’m below the national average. They give me background on this data and explain how they calculate it–great for students. You can also click around to read the latest news on carbon, with headlines like The transparency of plastics and Sorry, we’re all full (at this landfill)

Overall, a useful website for carbon basics.

Jacqui Murray has been teaching K-18 technology for 30 years. She is the editor/author of over a hundred tech ed resources including a K-12 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, K-8 Digital Citizenship curriculum. She is an adjunct professor in tech ed, Master Teacher, webmaster for four blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice, CSTA presentation reviewer, freelance journalist on tech ed topics, contributor to NEA Today, and author of the tech thrillers, To Hunt a Sub and Twenty-four Days. You can find her resources at Structured Learning.