Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Sudents Use Cell Phones to Measure Carbon Output

Finally a good use for cell phones at school! This is an interesting education approach I heard on the radio yesterday. For a change of pace, this is an audio posting. Click on the LISTEN HERE link below to listen.

"Go Green, a program in San Francisco schools, gives high school students cell phones that can help them monitor how much carbon they're using. Many say it gives them incentive to walk more and drive less. " - NPR's All Things Considered

4 comments:

  1. Whoaaa!! This is such a cool thing! I want this. Even though I have a pretty eco friendly car (compared to others) I drive constantly. I live 20 minutes away from everything so I am uber curious what my driving carbon footprint is like. I hope all cellphones will get this technology soon because people have absolutely no idea what they are putting into the atmosphere with their cars. I dont even know! I bet the results are shocking. I mean they must be for teenagers at that one school to limit driving and WALK more. for teenagers to walk anywhere that is an achievement. I wonder if the extra GPS device would cost extra on phones or would it be one of those freeby applicaitons on the phone. Depending on the accesibility I believe this could help teenagers understand the environment more and how if involves them.

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  2. This is pretty impressive, but I'm not so sure that giving out cellphones is in the budget of every school district. Maybe they should just make a program that is capable of going on most cell phones instead. I think this would be a little less costly. Otherwise this is pretty cool.

    Like Maddie said, I'm actually kind of interested in what my carbon footprint is because the majority of my friends live about 50-60 miles away from me and pretty much every weekend I drive all the way out there in my Jeep Grand Cherokee (not exactly and ecofriendly car). Hopefully this will become an application I could add to my phone soon. This way I could figure out all the gas I waste and possibly convince my father to get me a new car.

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  3. This is pretty cool. I am not so sure that many schools would adopt this because of budget. But like Nathaniel said maybe they could make a program that was on most cell phones that could measure this instead.
    I myself drive a good bit. It takes me on average 10-15 minutes to get to school. So on average i drive about 20 miles to school and back not counting where i go after school. This would be a great idea because most people would realize how much harm they are doing to the environment and would start carpooling and doing other alternatives than drive. I would deffenitely take up something like this.

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  4. IT sounds like a good idea but sounds a little expenseive buying cell phone just for that. Maybe instead they could just make a app for it or maybe they already have.I know that our schoo wouldnt do that we dont have much of a budget. But i would really like to find out how much carbon iam producing in my big truck

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