Calculate+Your+Carbon+Footprint

What organization developed the curriculum module you are evaluating? Monterey Bay Aquarium

What is the overall mission of the organization? Inspire conservation of the oceans

What is the educational mission and philosophy of the organization? The aquarium provides a variety of curriculum for elementary aged children because it hopes that by educating the younger generations it will inspire them to appreciate and care for our oceans.

What does the curriculum module aim to teach? In other words: what are the learning outcomes supposed to be? The objective of this curriculum is to get students to be able to describe how carbon dioxide emissions can influence climate change, and calculate their carbon footprint to identify their own personal contribution to climate change.

Do you think the curriculum is appropriately designed to produce the intended learning outcomes? I like that the curriculum teaches what carbon dioxide is and how it factors into greenhouse gases, more specifically how human actions can alter this number and how that has an affect on our environment. This curriculum is aimed for sixth to eighth grade I think. Because it is put out by the Monterey Bay Aquarium, it focuses on a few of the concerns in relation to our oceans: ocean acidification, disruptions to food webs, and coastal impacts. The link they gave to calculate your carbon footprint is out of date, the new link is here: http://www.nature.org/greenliving/carboncalculator/index.htm?intc=nature.fnav

It has the students go through the steps and then compare their results and come up with ways to reduce their impact.

Does this curriculum teach the kind of literacies advocated by EcoEd? This curriculum does a good job of encouraging students to think about their own actions have a series of effects that have a serious impact on our environment. Once they go through the steps and identify what their impact is, they can go and look at what factors they are contributing most and try to fix it.

What could be layered into this curriculum so that it addresses more of the learning outcomes advocated by EcoEd? I think once the students get the break down of their impact, they can look at various industries (home, travel, meat) that are related to climate change. They can identify any bias or motivation each company has in their role in climate change.