Click Away Carbon Emissions

Click Away Carbon Emissions
Page content

Curbing Carbon has Never Been this Easy!

It is becoming more and more common to cover carbon emissions and global warming in biology, social studies and even other subjects. Students are always looking for more ways that they can reduce their carbon footprint. While traditionally, carbon-reducing strategies have included walking, planting trees and recycling, now you can reduce carbon with just a few clicks!

One company, Odwalla Juice, launched a successful campaign called Plant-a-Tree in order to improve America’s state parks. All you had to do was visit the Plant-a-Tree page and click on the locations where you’d like the trees to be planted. It took only a few seconds and a few clicks for up to five trees to be planted in one of eight state parks. Fortunately, and unfortunately, the campaign was so successful that the company reached their limit for 2008. But according the program’s home page, it will be up and running in 2009. Be sure to check after the new year!

There’s more good news: Other sites are following suit and offering similar programs. In Canada, the Land Care Niagara association will plant a tree in the Niagara forest system for every five clicks. You can click once a day, and the trees will help the wildlife that lives in these fragile ecosystems. Since 2000, the group has planted more than 750,000 trees.

At a special Care2 global warming site, TerraPass will reduce one pound of CO2 through clean energy programs and projects for every click. Like the Niagara project, this one lets you click once a day, and if just once daily visit seems inconsequential, consider the combined impact. Care2 and TerraPass generally offset 5,000 to 6,000+ pounds of carbon every single day through this site.

For a classroom on a budget, this is an inexpensive way to get your kids involved in reducing carbon emissions. Encourage and challenge your students to visit these sites and to get involved in other green activities. You can even ask the media center specialist if these links can be bookmarked on the lab computers so that students have easy access to click away carbon.