UMD honors workshop conducts student carbon survey

The attendees of the University of Maryland’s honors workshop HONR359C are not only studying the historic role humans have played in the formation and alteration of the earth’s climate and environment, but are also hoping to raise campus awareness.

Entitled “Big History: Earth, Life, and Sustainability,” the workshop led by ESSIC / AOSC Professor Raghu Murtugudde, has embarked on a class project which seeks to gather data on the average UMD student’s carbon footprint.

Through the repurposing of a web-based carbon footprint calculator from the Nature Conservancy, the survey consists of a series of lifestyle habit questions ranging from transportation choices to water usage.

Workshop participants suggest the survey will require no more than 10 to 15 minutes to complete and can be accessed via the following URL: www.billgranfield.com/honr359c/

The HONR359C attendees hope to publish both survey analysis and recommendations in the university’s independant student-run newspaper, The Diamondback, later this spring.