The Our Footprints, Our Future (OF2) iEARN Project is Completed

At a time when the world is concerned about climate change, students around the world have demonstrated their willingness to play a role in reducing the amount of CO₂ in the atmosphere. Over the past 10 years, almost 600,000 youth have joined together in the iEARN project OF2 (Our Footprints, Our Future). Together they have pledged to change their lifestyles to reduce CO₂ by 200,000 tons, far exceeding the project’s goal! 

In the project, students measured their carbon footprints through a unique “Youth Calculator” developed by Zerofootprint.net in Canada.  “iEARN then adapted the calculator to the world’s socio-economic reality,” noted Ed Gragert, one of the project’s founders at iEARN-USA.  For example, the calculator asked questions about how students traveled to school, giving options that were based in the US and Canada (car, bus, bike, etc). iEARN then polled its global coordinators to list the possible ways that youth globally get to school and added such options as horse, boat, camel, etc.  This global reality in the use of fossil fuel energy demonstrated the huge gap in carbon footprints between youth in different countries.  Also available on the OF₂ website is an interactive description of the project developed by iEARN-Canada. 

We say “Thanks” to the hundreds of thousands of iEARN youth who have led the world in this initiative, which has now been completed.