I did a talk/demonstration of the Ecological Footprint concept with the Gzira Boys Secondary school. Here are a few photos. I don't have permissions to show full faces of the children.
What's the apple? I got the idea from a teaching website. You take an apple and call it Earth. The idea with the footprint is how much land we have to grow things and to build our homes. It allows us to compare our life to the available land. In the US my life, if used by everyone in the world would take 13-14 Earths; in Malta 7-8. ANYWAY: you ask how much of the Earth is covered with oceans (3/4). You cut the apple into three and take the 1/4 piece. You ask how much of this should we leave because it is freshwater or very unhospitable. You cut a chunk off. Now you ask, who/what else needs to use the Earth [plants and animals]. Cut some more. Then you ask if the remaining slice is all arable/habitable? Um, no...that would be the moltencore and rocks. So, you cut away all but the little think strip of peel. That's it.
The exercise, hard to see, had students following some guidelines and putting marbles in socks and comparing. The winner was the one with the least marbles.
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