1
Student Worksheet:Cookie Food Miles Activity
- Using the cookie recipe you brought in from home or one provided in the documentCookie Recipe Cards.docchoose a type of cookie you’d like to study, then add each ingredient required for the cookies into the provided table.
Cookie Recipe: Click here to enter text.
- Find where each ingredient comes from. Open the MS PowerPoint documentCookie Ingredients.ppt and view the document in slideshow mode. Once the presentation is in the full screen slide show you’ll be able to click on each ingredient you need and it will bring you to a slide with the information you will need to complete this step. The back link will take you to the first slide where you can choose your next ingredient.
Ingredient / Option A: Where ingredient typically comes from: / Option A: Total Miles / Option B: Local food choice (when possible) / Option B: Total Miles
Total Miles:
- Open Google Earth and located each city or country where the ingredients you need originate.
For additional Google Earth help refer to the tutorial Tutorial-Using_Google_Earth.doc
- For each location place a pushpin and label it. Put one final pushpin in where your home is located.
- Use the ‘add a path’ feature to connect each individual pushpin to your home pushpin. Be sure to label each path to make the process easier. Different colored paths could be used for the two food source options.
- Find the distance each ingredient travelled from the path properties. Record the distance in the table above.
- Paste an image of your Google Earth File in the box below.
- Sum the miles for each ingredient so that you can find the total number of food miles required to make your batch of cookies. Enter your values in the table above.
Food miles give a quick and easy way to compare how far ingredients have to travel however; alone they do not quantify the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by transporting goods. Emissions from food miles are calculated by the weight of goods used in the cookie recipe and the miles they travel. To calculate the CO2 emissions from your batch of cookies, use the directions below and the MS Excel worksheet attached.
- Open the MS Excel file Calculating CO2 worksheet.xls
- In the yellow boxes add the amount of each ingredient your cookies require. If the recipe doesn’t call for one of the listed ingredients enter “0” into the yellow box. Amounts should all be entered in units of cups, teaspoons or whole unit (for example, 1 egg)
- In each of the blue boxes insert the amount of miles each ingredient travels to get to your home town. There are four different columns for the four main forms of freight transport, choose the method of transport that is most likely for each ingredient.
Once you’ve entered the information for your batch of cookies the amount of carbon dioxide emissions will be calculated automatically. Repeat steps six and seven for Option B.
What are the greenhouse gas emissions (g) for your cookie recipe?
Option A: Click here to enter text.
Option B:Click here to enter text.
Write a short essay below about food miles for cookies and your findings. Include responses to the discussion questions posed below.
- Summarize your approach and findings.
- Does buying as few as one or two ingredients locally make a significant difference? Explain
- What can you do to reduce the amount of food miles your ingredients have to travel to make the cookies?
- Is there a significant difference in food miles between types of cookies? Explain your answer.
- Are there any other steps in making cookies that would emit greenhouse gases? What are these steps? What causes greenhouse gases to be emitted?
- Imagine trying to explain this project to your parents or guardian, how would you explain your results? What recommendations would you make that could affect your everyday food purchases?
Project module prepared for the Project-Based Global Climate Change Education Project, funded by NASA GCCE
Copyright © 2011, Office of Educational Partnerships, Clarkson University, Potsdam NY