El Centro College

ENVR 1401 Online

Ecological Footprints
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Objectives
1. Students will calculate their individual ecological footprint.
2. Students will determine their future ecological footprint after making alterations to their lifestyle.
3. Students will compare the ecological footprints of the U.S. and other nations.
4. Students will predict future trends in ecological footprints.
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Introduction

Like all species, humans need certain resources to survive. However, humans consume
resources not only for survival, but also for comfort, luxury and prestige. Whereas nonhuman
species generally must obtain their resources from within their ecosystem, in contrast, humans
have devised ways to remove resources from other ecosystems to satisfy their needs and
desires. Societies are not equal in their ability to extract, transport, process, manufacture and
use resources. They also have different philosophies and cultural perspectives regarding their
desire to utilize resources beyond basic needs. Thus, there is a question of equitable distribution
of resources among human societies as well as between humans and other species.

The area of productive land required to provide resources and assimilate waste to meet
consumption needs is referred to as the ecological footprint. The ecological footprint can
exceed carrying capacity; for example, take a look at the United States. The U.S. can maintain
more people than available resources can support because resources are extracted from other
countries. The earth is finite, therefore some countries must have an ecological footprint
smaller than its carrying capacity. Some populations must live near the subsistence level,
whereas others can live in a high degree of comfort. A method to determine and compare
footprints is to examine the per capita amount of resource use. We calculate the per capita
resource use by dividing the amount of available biological resources and waste assimilation
needs by the population. (Wagner, T. and Sanford, R. 2010. Environmental Science: Active Learning Laboratories and Applied Problem
Sets. 2nd ed. John Wiley & Sons, New York.)

Activity 1: Your Ecological Footprint

Please Highlight or type answers in a different color.

Question:
How many planets (Earth) does it take to support your lifestyle?

Hypothesis

Procedure

1. Go to the Earth Day Network Footprint Calculator.

http://www.earthday.net/footprint/index.html
2. Start the footprint quiz by selecting your location (USA).
3. Make an “Avatar” of yourself.
4. Answer each lifestyle question as accurate as possible. Do NOT use the “faster answers”
pathway.
Results (feel free to erase this diagram, take a screenshot or pic & insert your
results diagram here)

Table 1: Your Ecological Footprint

How many planets (Earth) are needed to Draw your ecological footprint breakdown:
provide enough resources to support people (Color coordinate your graph)
if everyone lived like you? Draw the Earths

2.7 Earths

How many global acres would take to Go back and edit your footprint, and explore
support your lifestyle? Draw the diagram scenarios to reduce your footprint
below.

Activity 2: Changing Your Lifestyle

Procedure
Now, edit your Footprint by making CHANGES to your lifestyle. List the changes you have made
to your lifestyle below, run the simulation again and record the impact it had on your ecological
footprint.
Changes Made:
1)
2)
3)
4)
5)

Results (feel free to erase this diagram, take a screenshot or pic & insert your results
diagram here)
Table 2: Impact on Your Ecological Footprint
How many planets (Earth) are needed Draw your ecological footprint
to provide enough resources to breakdown: (Color coordinate your
support people if everyone lived like graph)
you? Draw the Earths

How many global acres would take to Were any significant results seen from
support your lifestyle? Draw the the changes you made to your
diagram below. lifestyle?

Conclusion
1. Why do you think eating animal based products affects your footprint? Explain.
I think using and eating animal-based products affects carbon footprint because the huge
resources using to produce this product such as power, water, and lands. According to
Worldwatch Institute, 51 percent of global greenhouse-gas emissions are caused by animal
agriculture.
2. Why do you think eating processed, packaged and not locally grown food affects your
footprint? Explain.

3. Regardless of it being a status symbol, sense of permanency, etc., owning a home has always
been a goal that most
people strive to achieve. With the rise of environmentally friendly behaviors, do you think this is
changing? Explain.

Activity 3: Global Ecological Footprints

Procedure
To learn about the ecological footprints of the world and specific countries click on the overview
link. http://www.footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/GFN/page/footprint_basics_overview/

1. Give the basic definition of an ecological footprint and what it measures.

Use this link http://www.footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/GFN/page/world_footprint/ to answer

the rest of the questions for this lab.

2. What is ecological overshoot?

3. Using the “Overshoot Day” graph, describe the growth of the world ecological footprint
from 1960-2011.

4. Again using this graph, describe and explain the two potential ecological footprint
models for the year 2030. (red and green lines).

Move to the section titled Ecological Wealth of Nations by following the link.
http://www.footprintnetwork.org/content/documents/ecological_footprint_nations/
Open the interactive map & click on the United States. Answer the following questions about
the United States.

5. Hypothesize the growth trends of the ecological footprint and biocapacity prior to 1960.

6. Describe the growth of the ecological footprint of the U.S. from 1960-2011.
 7. What do you think are two major factors that account for an individual in the United
States’ ecological
footprint (in hectares per person)?

8. Using the graph, list the ecological footprint for a U.S. citizen in the following years-
1973, 1983, & 2011 in Global Hectares per Capita. Why such variation?
1973:
1983:
2011:

9. Predict the course of this graph for the next 20 years (2011-2031) for the U.S.

Find Japan on the interactive map and answer the following questions:

10. How does Japan’s ecological footprint compare to its biocapacity in general?

11. When will Japan’s biocapacity and ecological footprint equalize?

12. How does a Japanese citizen’s ecological footprint compare to someone from the U.S. in
the year 2005?

Find Chile on the interactive map and answer the following questions:

13. How does Chile’s biocapacity compare to its ecological footprint overall?

14. What do you think this says about Chile’s long term sustainability compared to the U.S.
or
Japan?

15. Estimate the average ecological footprint (in global hectares per capita) for a resident
of Chile from
1961 to 2005.

16. Predict the course of this graph for the next 20 years (2011-2031) for Chile.

Pick any country on the interactive map and answer the following question..

17. Tell which country you picked. ________________ Explain their graph and predict the
future
course of the graph.
Bonus 1: Check out the graph for New Zealand (two islands southeast of Australia).
Explain the graph.

Hypothesize as to why it looks like it does.

Predict the future trends of this graph.

Bonus 2: Relate what you have seen of ecological footprints to the Environmental Impact
Equation (I = P x A x T)