School Carbon Footprint

Schools Ecological Footprint Challenge

The Schools Ecological Footprint Challenge is being trialled at Bilgola Plateau Public
School following on from last year's Carbon Footprint Competition, which saw four

Peninsular schools competing to see which family had the lowest carbon footprint.

The aim of the Schools' Ecological Footprint Challenge is to encourage school
students to involve their families in finding out their Ecological Footprint,
discover their biggest areas of resource consumption and learn what they can do
to minimise their use of resources and tread more lightly on the earth.

The Challenge will take the following form:

1          A workshop will be conducted with Year 6 students at which
an introduction to the concept of Ecological Footprinting will be given,
followed by a demonstration of the Victorian EPA Footprint Calculator on a
smart board. The casino great britain students will be shown how to find ways to explore simple
actions to change their family's footprint.

2          Students will be given a project to take home to their
parents with an explanation of the Challenge and the website address for the
Victorian EPA Calculator . They will be asked to have their parents help them
log on to this website and provide some of the information requested in the
calculator.

3          The family will run through the calculator together,
entering data as they go, save their details at the end and explore scenarios
for changing their footprint.

4          A follow-up workshop will be held with the Year 6 students
who will be assisted in completing the Footprint Calculator to see if any
changes they have implemented as a result of the family's actions have resulted
in any changes in consumption.

 5          A small group of students will be
offered the opportunity to attend the Sustainable Living Expo in October and
assist visitors to the Expo to calculate their own Ecological Footprint over
the course of the day. This would typically take approx. 15-20 minutes and the students
would work in shifts at a school stall throughout the day.

This will require several (say 4) laptop computerswith wireless internet.