Climate Awareness Project (CAP) for Youth
Station Descriptions
CAP for Youth currently has nine discovery stations that comprise the entire project.
ECO2-Trivia
ECO2-Trivia is a knowledge based vocabulary and concept game. Participants are placed into groups and compete against each other in a trivia contest.
This station interactively engages the competitive nature of students while incorporating vocabulary and knowledge of concepts behind carbon emissions, unsustainable resource use & climate change.
Race for the Planet
Participants are challenged to virtually "ride a bike", "drive a car" and "ride the bus". Presenters describe some of the drawbacks to each type of transportation, while asking participants for some of the positives, to counteract the ease and simplicity of the choice to just take the car.
Race for the Planet demonstrates distance travelled and carbon emissions/person. Therefore, if the person in the car or bus invites more people to ride with them, they might end up with a smaller per person carbon footprint similar to that of the participant on the bike.
The participants may think that the person who crosses the finish line will win, however it's the participant with the smallest transportation footprint that will win!
Carry Your Own Carbon
This station demonstrates the amount of greenhouse gas emissions that are emitted by a person's lifestyle choices and habits.
Carry Your Own Carbon includes of a set of weights that represent estimated carbon emitted from daily activities. Participants learn how the things they do at home and school affect their carbon footprints and what changes in their habits and activities can reduce their carbon load.
Crank it Up!
Crank it Up compares the physical energy required to light incandescent and compact fluorescent light bulbs.
Presenters describe the basics behind different lighting technology, advancement & impacts, and energy consumed and greenhouse gas emissions from their use. Hand-crank generators placed side-by-side are used by students assist in the demonstration.
Time-Travelling Emissions
This station gives visual context to the current changes in climate and greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere over long time frames.
How Big is Your Foot?
Our common goal is to lower our greenhouse gas emissions and hence reduce our carbon footprints. In order to do that, we must be able to measure ourselves against some kind of standard. This station gives us a chance to compare the results of our own habits against those of the rest of the Canada's. Carbon emissions will be sub-divided into 5 different categories: food; water; waste; transportation; and energy.
Which Bin Does it Go In?
At this station, participants will sort a bag of pre-cleaned "waste" from a typical household. Gloves & blue, black, compost and waste bins will be provided. Students are split into teams and are given a limited amount of time in which to sort their "waste" appropriately.
After the time expires, presenters examine each team's bins and explain to the participants where some things could have been reused or put into blue/black/compost bins (instead of waste), as well as exploring what happens to waste after it is recycled, landfilled, or composted.
This station gives participants a chance to truly appreciate the ‘reuse' and 'recycle' aspects of the ‘reduce, reuse, and recycle' paradigm.
(Re-) Actions
Participants watch volunteer presenters explore a city model that demonstrates where greenhouse gas emissions are sourced. The model includes a landfill, house, car, building, roads, and even some sample citizens!
This station allows participants to visualize and learn about various carbon sources.
Hot, Hot, Hot!
Participants place their hand under a lamp (simulating heat from the sun). At the same time, students will experience a simulated greenhouse effect by placing their other hand inside a scaled plexiglass greenhouse that is underneath another lamp. This comparative lamp demonstrates the way greenhouse gases keep the sun's heat in the atmosphere longer and more intensely than usual.
