Pupils create a carbon footprint for their school
As part of the ‘makingAchange’ school project, the Competence Centre for Climate Neutrality, together with colleagues from Graz University of Technology, supported pupils and teachers in identifying the largest sources of emissions from their school operations over three project years by collecting data and calculating emissions and, in a next step, deriving the most effective climate protection measures from this.
The necessary knowledge was imparted in live workshops via Zoom (2020/21 & 2021/22) and as part of an online course (2022/23), which was developed together with the workshop provider TUit to continue CO2footprinting after the end of the project. The topics covered include:
- Basic knowledge of climate change
- Basics of CO2-accounting
- Using the accounting tool “ClimCalc“
- Mobility survey
- Measures & strategies for climate protection
Equipped with the necessary tools and knowledge, the workshop participants collected the necessary data over a period of several months. They received support from the Competence Centre for Climate Neutrality as well as the TU Graz during all years of the project.
As part of the final workshops, some of the balances drawn up and concepts for reduction measures were presented by the pupils and the balances were compared. The following graphic shows the balances that were submitted in the last two school years. The greenhouse gas emissions are given per school year and student in order to create better comparability.
As the journey to climate neutrality can be a long one, this project was also designed to last several years. This allowed the trained climate protectors to pass on their knowledge to the next generation of pupils.
Everything surrounding the concluded project as well as a detailed closing report can be found on the makingAchange website.
To keep on giving schools the opportunity to create a CO2 balance as a basis for climate protection measures and to speed up the school sector's journey to climate neutrality, the makingAchange CO2 accounting is now:
Starting in the school year 2023/24, the CO2 accounting is available as a TUit workshop by TU Graz under https://super-science-team.tugraz.at/angebote-fuer-schulen/.
