Project Overview

Problem Overview:

The problem is to figure out the total amount of carbon footprint a typical Drexel student makes based on their daily life at Drexel. What is a carbon footprint? Carbon footprint can be defined as the total number of greenhouse gases produced by human activities. Thanks to Al Gore and his documentary "An Inconvenient Truth," greenhouse gasses have become a widespread concern [1].   Greenhouse gas is gases (e.g. carbon dioxide) that contribute to the greenhouse effect which evidently cause a rise in the atmosphere temperature. Everything that people do, from buying food to transportation, there can be in some way a pollutant contributed into the atmosphere. The food that a person would buy from a grocery store, such as vegetables or meats, needs to be transported to the supermarket, therefore creates a certain amount of pollutant [2]. Additionally, transportation by car or train will also create pollutants [2]. Daily activities that people do can cause certain levels of pollutants and it is our task to figure out the carbon footprint of the typical student at Drexel. Once data is collected, greenhouse gas emissions are evaluate using certain methods such as a program called SimaPro and then are analyze for the biggest contributors to these emissions. Suggestions such as a change in transportation or eating method are some possible implementations.

Design Constraints:


There are several determent factors that constrain possible solutions to the project, but the most significant constraint is that the target audience is based around Drexel student’s lifestyle. The typical Drexel college students cannot be categorized for the general public and therefore the researched must be constrained to be based around the life of a college student. In other words, this research holds only true to the students at Drexel. Another constraint is that the data that is needed to calculate the carbon footprint may not be available. Carbon footprint calculators such as SimaPro may have a large database but still doesn't hold all the products information. Additionally, another constraint is that students don't always do the same activity every day. A student can  do laundry one day and then do another load when the clothes pile up. Therefore, activities such as laundry are never consistent and may affect the outcome of the report. As for time, the time duration is based on a 10 week interval where the research starts on week 1 and proceeds to week 9. Thus, there is a constraint in the research time. Additionally, the carbon footprint is never measured accurately, it can only be approximated.

Pre-Existing Solutions:


In terms of pre-existing solutions, there are programs called carbon footprint calculators available online, that can calculate and individuals carbon footprint. For example, the carbon footprint calculator from "The Nature Conservancy" takes information about home energy, transportation, food, and recycling and calculates the carbon footprint of an individual person. However, this calculator can only calculate a general number of CO2 emissions, and it uses average data from entire country for comparison [3]. Our group is only focusing on the Philadelphia area, but with this calculator we will be able to compare it to the national average.

There are also are also websites articles, like “How To Calculate Your Carbon Footprint Online,” that teach people how to get their carbon footprint [4]. For example, multiply your monthly electricity bill by 105 (which means you produce this amount of CO2 emitted by using electricity) then multiply your monthly gas bill by 105 (amount of CO2 emitted by using gas) and so forth. After adding all the results up, it will give you a number that shows how many kilograms of CO2 this person produces every year. This solution won’t suit our project either, because our project is mainly about freshman students attending Drexel. For most of the freshman here, things like electricity bills and gas bills don’t exist, however we do rely on university electricity and public transportation.

Just as there are many websites that deal with the calculation of carbon footprints, there are many articles that teach us to reduce our individual carbon footprint. Scoot Belan’s article is about eating locally and reducing carbon footprints. For example, he mentioned suggestions for those who have gardens. He says that they should create their own vegetable supplying system. Not only will it provide fresh vegetables, it will also help reduce emissions because energy is saved from food transportation and those plants themselves will also have a little help on environment [5]. Again, even though this is a great way to reduce the individual’s carbon footprint, it has little help on our project since reducing carbon footprint is not our main goal. Our group is hoping to find a way that gathers data about carbon footprints of Drexel students.

Design Goal

The goal of this project can be stated in two parts:

1.) To accurately measure how large the environmental impact due to pollutant causing machines or chemicals, otherwise known as the “carbon footprint,” is of students around Drexel University’s campus and to compare that with the carbon footprint is of students attending other universities.

2.) To make the students participating in the surveys aware of their impact on the environment and to give them insight on reducing their carbon footprint thus making their contribution to global warming less significant.

This method differs from previously existing methods because it incorporates face-to-face interactions through the use of surveys, as well as taking of advantage of the internet, via the blog created.

Project Deliverable:

Since the group is focusing on the typical student's of Drexel daily activities, we may not be able to make suggestions about how human being should do to reduce carbon footprint. However, based on our survey, we could determine which certain daily action is healthy or not. And then, we could tell people what they should change and what they can do to reduce carbon footprint.


Project schedule:

Project Budget:

1. Cost in printing the questionnaires. Estimate: $5.00
2. Unpredicted additional cost: $5.00