Ecological Footprint & Biocapacity Activity
Have you ever wondered what your Ecological Footprint is? How much land do you need to support your lifestyle?
You’ll work through this “friendly” Ecological Footprint program and see what your impact is. Once done, there are a few
questions for you to think about and respond to.
Follow the directions at https://www.footprintcalculator.org/ and complete the following questions:
Result Part 1:
If everyone lived like you, we would need ___________ Earths.
Take a look at the little “i’s” behind the numbers displayed here to fully understand what the numbers mean.
Result Part 2: (don’t forget to add units to any numerical answers)
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What is your largest consumption category? ___________________ Least? ______________
My Ecological Footprint is: ______________
My Carbon Footprint is: ________________
How do you feel? ___________________________________
You can continue to “Explore Your Data” directly on this page, or open a full page website by going to:
https://data.footprintnetwork.org/#/
Near the bottom of this page, you’ll see 5 circles that you can click through one at a time-under them there will be more
information about what it means and the colour scheme used to interpret the map above them.
1. Explain in your own words what “Ecological Deficit/Reserve means & which colour is “better” for the Earth.
2. Explain in your own words what “Ecological Footprint per Person” means & which colour is “better to have.
3. Explain in your own words what “Biocapacity per Person” means & which colour is best.
Click through the circles under the map and see how Canada “is doing” in comparison to other countries. You can hover
over a country of interest to see their specific information as well.
4.
Notice the “Ecological Deficit/Reserve” Circle-Compare Canada to the USA, what do you think our two values
are so different?
5. How does your Ecological Footprint compare to Canada’s average? How could you improve your number? How
could Canada improve our number?
6.
Identify & explain something else (different from any of the above questions) that you found interesting about the
data on this page.
Submit your answers in the appropriate area in the Assignments section.