1. Calculating Ecological Footprint
How much earth does it take to support you?
Calculating Ecological Footprint

2. What is an ecological footprint?
Your ecological footprint is a calculation that shows the productive area of Earth that is required to support one person
It estimates
Land used for crops
Forest products
Housing
Grazing
Ocean area to harvest seafood
Forest area needed to absorb air pollution

3. How do we calculate it?
Everything you do and use is considered in calculating your ecological footprint
Today’s calculations will be very simplified calculations
We will look at
Trash
Water consumption
Diet
Transportation
Energy usage

4. What does it mean?
The bigger your ecological footprint, the more earth you use
Developed countries average a higher ecological footprint
Consider this:
Of the 51 billion hectares of earth’s surface, we can only use 12 billion hectares to support us biologically
There are 7.4 billion people on the earth and the population continues to grow
We are continuously losing biologically productive areas

5. Average earth share
The amount of biologically productive earth that is available to each person is called the average earth share
To calculate this number, we divide the area of biologically productive earth (12 billion hectares) by the number of people on earth (7.6 billion)

6. What is your ecological footprint?
Log on to the computers
Go to the website at the top of your page and complete the survey
How many earths do you need?
Complete the table about sustainability at home and school
Calculate your ecological footprint based on the charts
Answer the analysis questions