ASSIGNMENT – Personal and Professional Footprint (30%) The objective of this assignment is to assess your ecological impact on your immediate environment, and to reflect on what that means in global terms. Submission of your work: DO NOT EMAIL ME A COPY OF YOUR ASSIGNMENT – SUBMIT IT ON BLACKBOARD. When your assignment is complete, upload it on blackboard by clicking “Footprint Assignment (40%)” on the left menu in Blackboard. Be sure your assignment is complete before uploading as you only have once chance to upload it, and it cannot be replaced or uploaded again. Length: min. 1,200 words (4 typewritten pages) plus illustration of process. Structure: Please save your document as a MSWord file. References: use a minimum of 5 references: any information taken from websites must be reputable and abide by standard of APA. All information like date, author, publisher, etc., must be provided. Report or Essay format, with a minimum of five complete and credible references. See http://plagiarism.umf.maine.edu/valid.html for a definition of credible sources. Brief description and rationale of assignment: You are asked to use description, reflection and analysis to discuss: (a) your personal impact on the environment, (b) your chosen profession’s impact on the environment. (c) explain and illustrate a current scientific or technological process associated with a resource used either in your profession or in your personal life, and (d) propose an alternative process which offers a more positive solution to the environmental concerns you have described Mark distribution: See Footprint Grade Sheet below (worth 30% of your final grade) Extensions: Late papers will lose 2 marks per day. Assignment details and guide questions: Part (a) Find an environmental/carbon/eco footprint calculator online and calculate your environmental footprint. In approximately 250 to 300 words, discuss the general results of your eco footprint, and comment, now that you have had an opportunity to think about it, what, if anything, you would change in your own lifestyle. Were you surprised? Dismayed? Part (b) Introduce your industry (your chosen profession or vocation) and the resources it uses. In other words, what kind of environmental impact does have on the world and its resources? Discuss an environmental impact you think is most preoccupying and that deserves attention. Explain why you think this deserves priority, and support your assertions with statistics, concepts, and ideas that are not general knowledge. During your research, you may find specific or general information about your industry’s footprint. You may also find that the information you seek is incomplete, inconsistent, or non-existent. If the latter is the case, research your topic to the best of your ability and decide to either deepen your search or to choose another topic. Part (c) Explain a scientific or technological process that relates to your industry. Use plain, understandable language, and use an illustration to enhance your explanation. For example, show what is involved in extracting a raw material from the ground and what it takes to transform that raw material, even on a molecular level-- to the product you or your industry use today. Describe the negative impact of this product or this process on the environment by tracing the life cycle of the product from the time it is created, to the process of disposal. Part (d) Identify or propose an alternative scientific or technological process which offers a more positive solution to the environmental concerns you have described in (b) and/or (c). What processes and systems assist it to run better, more efficiently? Find both positive and negative comments on this process and explain why you think the alternative is better than what exists now. Note, solutions can generally fall into 4 different categories. 1. Behavioural: solutions that change individual behaviours 2. Regulatory: solutions implemented by government policy 3. Market-based: solutions based on pricing mechanisms or markets 4. Technological/Scientific: solutions based on the introduction of a new technology or scientific method For this assignment I want you to introduce TECHNOLOGICAL/SCIENTIFIC based solutions AND one BEHAVIOURAL solution. You can also include regulatory or market-based solutions, and it would likely benefit your paper to include them, however you must include at least one technological/scientific based solution (as science is a key theme to the course) AND one behaviour based solution (as we have discussed throughout the course that technology alone is not sufficient to reduce the impacts we are having on our environment, contributing to climate change). Footprint Grade Sheet Objectives Description Max. Part (a) *Description of personal footprint = 1 mark your personal impact on the environment *Local and world comparisons = 1 mark *Discussion of final result = 2 marks *Reflection of impact on the environment = 3 marks *Rationale for personal choices and lifestyle changes = 3 marks Part (b) *Introduce your industry and its general use of natural resources = 2 marks your profession’s impact on the environment *Discuss general and specific impacts on the environment = 2 marks *Discuss one specific environmental concern attributable to your industry’s impact = 3 marks *Explain why you believe this deserves priority and support with specific data = 3 marks Part (c) explain and illustrate a current scientific or technological process associated with a resource used either in your profession or in your personal life *Explain a scientific or technological process relevant to your industry currently in place = 4 marks Part (d) propose an alternative process to the environmental concerns you have described *Recommend and describe an alternative scientific/technological process and a behaviour change approach that promotes environmental justice and sustainability = 5 marks *Include an illustration (of scientific or technological process) to enhance your explanation = 1 mark Total 30 Loss of marks: *up to -5 for grammatical errors, lack of coherence, and lack of structure. *up to -10 for incomplete or incorrect references. If references are missing, either in the body of the paper or on the reference page, the paper will be considered plagiarized and will not be marked.