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?
3.1
Hypothesis
It will take 3.1 planet Earth to support my life style

Procedure

1. Go to the Earth Day Network Footprint Calculator. Personal Ecological Footprint Calculator
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
1. How many planets (Earth) are needed to provide enough resources to support people if everyone lived like
you? Draw the Earths

2. Draw your ecological footprint breakdown: (Color coordinate your graph)

3. How many global acres would take to support your lifestyle? Draw the diagram below.
not sure if the website still supports this feature

Now, Go back and edit your footprint, and explore scenarios to reduce your footprint

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) Eat animal product changed to be Very Often
2) housing type changed to be Luxury condominium
3) house material changed to be wood
4) energy efficient changed to be Above average
5) trash generate changed to be More
Results

1. How many planets (Earth) are needed to provide enough resources to support people if everyone lived like
you? Draw the Earths

2. Draw your ecological footprint breakdown: (Color coordinate your graph)

3. How many global acres would take to support your lifestyle? Draw the
diagram below.
Conclusion
1. Why do you think eating animal based products affects your footprint? Explain.
Animal products industries using a huge resource such as lands, water, plants, and produce a huge amount of
carbon. Also, how this industry treats animals and feeds this animal affect our ecological system, and keep eating
animal’s products will affect our planet by consuming our resources and reduce more pollution.

2. Why do you think eating processed, packaged and not locally grown food affects your footprint? Explain.
processed and packaged food industries require a huge amount of energy for their machines, storage, distribute
food, and material used to produce this food container. by eating processed food will cause more pollution and
affect our environment

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.

I think people will keep owning a home as a big dream for them, but with increasing of environmental awareness
the material we use to build our houses will be change to be environmentally friendly, recyclable material, and the
spaces we use to build those houses will reduce and more efficient

Activity 3: Global Ecological Footprints

Procedure
To learn about the ecological footprints of the world and specific countries click on the overview link. Ecological
Footprint Definition

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

Ecological Footprint measures the ecological assets that a given population requires to produce the
natural resources it consumes (including plant-based food and fiber products, livestock and fish products, timber and
other forest products, space for urban infrastructure) and to absorb its waste, especially carbon emissions.

Use this link Ecological Footprint of the World to answer the rest of the questions for this lab.

2. What is ecological overshoot?

The worlds ecological deficit

2. Using the “Overshoot Day” graph, describe the growth of the world ecological footprint from 1960-2011.
The number of planet earth need increasing over the years. In 1960 there were around 0.8 earth need
and this number increase in 2011 to be almost 1.7 earth.
 3. Again using this graph, describe and explain the two potential ecological footprint models for the year 2030.
(red and green lines).
The First potential ecological footprint increases the number of earth need in 2030 if we keep producing
the same amount of carbon
The second potential ecological footprint decrease the number of earth need in 2030 if we keep reduce the
amount of carbon

Move to the section titled Ecological Wealth of Nations by following the link. Ecological Footprint of Nations
Open the interactive map & click on the United States. Answer the following questions about the United States.

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

The ecological footprint it was around 8 in 1960 and the biocapacity it was around 5 in 1960 and I think it
was the same before 1960 .

5. Describe the growth of the ecological footprint of the U.S. from 1960-2011.

The ecological footprint has been Growing significantly since 1960

7. What do you think are two major factors that account for an individual in the United States’ ecological
footprint (in hectares per person)?
population number are increased rapidly
consumer lifestyle and energy use

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: 8.2
1983: 8.3
2011:

9. Predict the course of this graph for the next 20 years (2011-2031) for the U.S..
the graph will keep showing the increase in for next 20 years

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

10. How does Japan’s ecological footprint compare to its biocapacity in general?
ecological footprint is higher than the biocapacity.
11. When will Japan’s biocapacity and ecological footprint equalize?
with this rate Japan’s biocapacity and ecological footprint will never equalize

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

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

13. How does Chile’s biocapacity compare to its ecological footprint overall?
biocapacity is much higher than its ecological footprint in the beginning, but it settles slowly after 1980

14. What do you think this says about Chile’s long-term sustainability compared to the U.S. or
Japan?
sustainability for Chile’s in long-term is better than U.S. or Japan because the ecological footprint is
lower than biocapacity
 15. Estimate the average ecological footprint (in global hectares per capita) for a resident of Chile from
1961 to 2005.
Is about 3.2

16. Predict the course of this graph for the next 20 years (2011-2031) for Chile.
I think it will increase

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

17. Tell which country you picked. ___ DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO ________ Explain their graph
and predict the future course of the graph.

The graph shows the ecological footprint has not changed over the years and biocapacity has decreased
over the years and this change will keep continues

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)