Carbon Footprint

A Carbon Footprint is the amount of greenhouse gases are emitted into the environment by a person, household, organization, country, etc.

1. http://www.nature.org/initiatives/climatechange/calculator/
Above is a URL to a site to help calculate your CARBON FOOTPRINT.

2. This site was very useful and accurate for me to use. It helped me find out which 'station' of GHG's helped or hurt the environment we live in. This is a site where most kids would have no trouble using. The site is clearly labeled and is easy to understand.

3. My Carbon Footprint as a household of five people the results were: 91 tons of Carbon Dioxide equivalent to 1 year. This is lower than the U.S. National Average.

4. Their are three easy ways I can reduce my Carbon Footprint.
A) I can reduce my Carbon Footprint myself in a few simple ways. I can take shorter showers each day. I also could carpool or provide a carpool to people in my area to school every day. I could reduce the amount of meat I eat each day and try to stick to more organic foods. These are only a couple of ways I could reduce my Footprint.
B) My school could reduce its Carbon Footprint as well. My schools cafeteria could serve more organic foods. It could cut back on transportation by having one day a month be a no bus day and kids could learn about carpooling this way. Also the school could have more LIGHTS OFF days to reduce the amount of electricity it uses. These are some ways my school could reduce its Carbon Footprint.
C) The community could reduce its carbon footprint in a few easy ways. There could be a community compost center in which people could bring their compost materials there. There could also be a COMMUNITY CLEAN UP weekend where there would be environment awareness programs and a major clean up of highways, roads, parks, and other important pieces of land here. That would be like a 'Earth Day' except it would be more frequent, like a couple of weekends throughout the spring, summer, and fall.

5. Our community leaves a big Carbon Footprint on our watershed. Eaton Rapids is part of 2 major watersheds: Grand River, and Great Lakes watershed. There is a lot we can to improve the watershed here. Since "knowledge is power" I think it's important to have accurate analysis of our city's water in which data should be collected often. The way we use our environment reflects in our watershed. So far our community has done a lot to reduce the amount of pollutants going into the watershed. One thing that the city has done is put in a new sewer system to prevent from leakage into the Grand River and homes when it floods. A clean watershed provides many good things to the habitat surroundings. It helps animals from being poisoned and plants from being destroyed. It provides clean water to houses and communities. It's important to reduce the Carbon Footprint in our watershed to protect our community's and our environment's future.