As part of the Math4Sustainability project, NEMO Science Museum in Amsterdam has developed a hands-on activity that connects mathematics with engagement for sustainability. Calculate your emissions invites students to reflect on their own actions in daily life.

Activity Summary

Calculate your emissions can be done individually or in small groups. The students start with building a simple scale from some rope, tape and a ruler. 

In the second part students answer questions about daily live actions like ‘How do you travel to school’. The answers to the questions correspond to a certain CO2 emission which is represented by bags of rice. After answering the questions, the students hang all the bags that correspond with their actions on one side of the scale. On the other side of the scale, they hang the budget of CO2 emission. 

Now they look at the scale. Which side is the heaviest? Can they explain this? Would they make other choices?   

Educational Value

By using their own daily live choices and making the consequences of these choices visual, students are encouraged to reflect on the choices and discuss this with peers and maybe even with their families at home. The activity also supports collaborative learning, careful observation, and drawing conclusions from experience.

Piloting phase

This activity was piloted during Science Night in November — an annual evening event at NEMO where secondary school teachers visit after hours to gather ideas for STEM-activities in the classroom. Teachers tried the activity and gave feedback. This feedback will be addressed in the piloting of this activity with students during the upcoming months.