Everything you eat. Everything you drink. Everything you use.
Your entire life’s consumption. In one place at one time.
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Synopsis
In a playful, surprising and thought-provoking portrait of our time on earth, National Geographic demonstrates, in a series of
remarkable visuals, what makes up an average human life today and how everything we do has impact on the world around us. In this
unique journey through life, it shows all the people you will ever know, how much waste you will produce, the amount of fuel
you'll consume and how much you've got to pack in during your 2,475,526,000 seconds on earth.
90 minutes long, released 2008,
How would you use this film in class?
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Review
The National Geographic film
Human Footprint
is an educational film about the effects humans have on our planet. It introduces the concept of an ecological footprint to the
viewers and continues, in great detail, about the specific footprint an average American creates throughout his or her lifetime.
The movie is geared towards students -- and is especially appropriate for middle school and high school ages -- but would be of
interest for elementary age students and adults.
The film opens with a colorful video montage of the resources people use on a regular basis: gasoline, clothing, trash, food
and beverage. The goal is to literally show the viewer how much "stuff" we use over our lifetimes. Our human footprint, defined as
the impact each person makes on the earth's resources over his or her lifetime, is depicted in very literal terms. An average
person drives 627,000 miles in a lifetime; produces 64 tons of waste; drinks 13,056 pints of milk; 43,371 cans of soda. Parents
use an average of nearly 4,000 diapers for each child. And, as we see in the movie, it takes 1,898 pints of crude oil and 715
pounds of plastic and pulp from 4 trees to make those diapers. Detailed analyses of what we consume is both startling and
motivating. Pints of milk, loaves of bread, cans of soda are placed side-by-side, creating a striking visual image.
The positives of this movie are many. It is fast-paced and visually very appealing. It addresses a social problem, but in a
manner which breaks the problem down into discrete topics. By doing this, students will able to attack the issue, rather than be
overwhelmed. The statistics cited are shocking, but will long be forgotten in the way that numbers usually are. However, the
visual accompaniment, (for example, a room filled with oranges, or a football field filled with loaves of bread) won't likely be.
The narrator does not have to urge viewers to reduce consumption. The images alone do that.
If there is a negative, it runs along the notion of information overload. The film covers numerous items that go into our
individual ecological footprints. Some students might find that, after a while, things start to blend together. If this causes
concern, it is easily fixed. Split the movie up into parts. There are fairly clear stopping points in the movie. It would be easy
to either just show portions of the movie that might most pertain to your students. Alternatively, the movie is well-suited to
being divided over a few class periods.
This movie could easily supplement studies on conservation, energy independence, global warming and a wide variety of subjects.
It could be accompanied by both in classroom activities and collaboaration with other ePals classrooms. For example, students
could chart their "footprint" over a week or a month, or that of their families. They could compare this footprint with those of
other classrooms, in rural areas, in other parts of the United States or in other countries throughout the world. The film could
be discussed with classrooms on a blog or using email to discuss practical ways to reduce the human footprint, etc.
All in all, the film provides many clear examples of our human footprint and let's students come to their own conclusions.
Students of all ages will find something that relates directly to them...and all stduents can be encouraged to come up with ideas
to reduce their own footprints
