Carbon Footprint Lesson Plan

Carbon Footprint Lesson Plan
Purpose (why of the lesson, where and how does it fit into the course/curriculum)
The purpose of this lesson is to teach the students about global warming and how their energy uses / shopping
habits are linked to global warming
Learning outcome(s) (what will students be able to do/know by the end of the lesson)
Understand where Fossil Fuels come from and how we are reliant on them
Know that burning fossil fuels is linked to Global Warming
Know the term Carbon Footprint
Understand ways that a carbon footprint can be reduced
STARTER (focus student attention)
Show slide 3 An engineering achievement
Ask the questions

1. does anybody know where the energy comes from to enable us to light up our cities?
2. why are some areas brighter than others on the map [A: high density population areas]
3. does anybody know what environmental problems there are with our current energy
sources
4. Ask students if they can identify some of the brightly lit cities (e.g. London, paris,
Stockholm, etc)
Main Lesson
[make reference to the numbers on the slide] Oil
was formed from the remains of animals and
plants that lived millions of years ago in a marine
(water) environment before the dinosaurs. Over
millions of years, the remains of these animals
and plants were covered by layers of sand and
silt. Heat and pressure from these layers helped
the remains turn into what we today call crude oil.
Gas is formed in a similar way.
Ask the question, Apart from lighting what do
we use fossil fuels for?
www.BruneiCarbonFootprint.com
Megamas Training Company Sdn Bhd

Explain the pictures. Ask what else we use fossil
fuels for
Explain how most of the products available in

Brunei are either shipped or flown in.
Aerial view of gadong powerstation. The gas is

supplied by BLNG and is used to produce
electricity.
Gas is also used for cooking
Five hundred million years ago carbon dioxide was 20

times more prevalent than today, decreasing to 4-5
times during the Jurassic period and then slowly
declining with a particularly swift reduction occurring
49 million years ago.
Human activities such as the combustion of fossil
fuels and deforestation have caused the atmospheric
concentration of carbon dioxide to increase by about
35% since the beginning of the age of
industrialization.
Up to 40% of the gas emitted by some volcanoes
during eruptions is carbon dioxide. It is estimated that
every year volcanoes release about 130-230 million
tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere.

Co2 emissions might come from small sources
(such as driving a car) or from large scale
emissions such as forest fires (pictured red)
above
Ask a student to identify where Brunei is on the
map
Explain global warming
Ask the students what are the effects of global

warming
Climate change is commonly accepted to be the
greatest threat to our environment. It will result in us
all experiencing more extreme weather with wetter
winters and drier summers. This has been caused by
the levels of greenhouse gases, including carbon
dioxide (CO2), which have been released into our
atmosphere. In the UK, business produces almost half
of the carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.
Introduce the term carbon footprint. This is a

term used to describe how much an individual or
business contributes to global warming. There
are ways to measure your energy usage and
convert it to CO2. Your carbon footprint is the
total of all these CO2 emissions.

Every single company / organisation has a carbon
footprint. The more energy it uses the larger the
carbon footprint.
It is time to review whether the students are

understanding the material so far.
This quiz can either be done individually or in pairs.
Provide students with four A4 pieces of paper. On one
of the pieces of paper write/print a big letter A, on the
other a letter B, on the other a letter C, on the other
a letter D,
As each question comes up, ask the students to hold
up either A,B,C,D depending on what they think is the
correct answer. Refer to speaker notes in the
PowerPoint for the correct answer.
Companies, families and individuals all have a

carbon footprint. But they are all different
Ask the questions why?
Answer: because everybody uses different
amounts of energy, families are different sizes,
we drive different cars, some people go on more
holidays than others, etc
Individually or in pairs get the students to read the

story and circle items they think contribute to this
familys carbon footprint.
On the second page, ask the students to write the
items into one of the three columns as per the
instructions on the worksheet.

Explain to the students that their familys carbon
footprint can be measured by looking at their
recent utility bills and looking at their lifestyle
habits. This will be the homework assignment.
Ask the students if they can think of any ways in

which their carbon footprint can be reduced.
Plenary Quiz:
Distribute the worksheet and ask the students to
complete it. If time is short, this can be given as
an additional homework activity.
Summarise the main topics from the lesson then

set the homework by handing out the homework
sheet.
Homework
For homework ask the students to take home the homework sheet. They need to fill in the
various blanks by referring to recent utility bills.
Gifted and Talented students

G&T students can attempt to do the Rahman worksheet on their own.
For extension activities they can rank items they have circled on the Rahman worksheet into the
order they think contributes to their carbon footprint from high to low.
Low ability students
Students who have difficulty understanding the subject matter need to be paired with higherability students.
Rahman worksheet : For low ability students it is sufficient for them to only circle the items that
may contribute to a high carbon footprint.
Extension Activities
On large flip chart paper, students can draw a poster that can educate others about carbon
footprinting.
Notes:

Carbon Footprint Lesson Plan

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Carbon Footprint Lesson Plan

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Carbon Footprint Lesson Plan

Ask the questions

Megamas Training Company Sdn Bhd