"Tsukuba Style" Curriculum - Environment-Related Exercise, Grade 7

Tsukuba's public middle schools began the new school year on April 9. In his first year at Yatabe Higashi Junior High School, my son today brought home his first assignment for the new "Tsukuba Style" Curriculum. A letter from the school principal, this assignment asks parents and guardians to provide information for a CO2 emissions audit.



Source: Takashi Nakamura, Principal, Yatabe Higashi Junior High School, Tsukuba, "Request for materials for ECO health diagnostics," a letter addressed to parents and guardians of first year students, May 1, 2012

Items requested:

• Electricity bill for April
• Gas bill for April
• Water and sewer bill for April-May
• Gasoline receipts for April (if available)
• Diesel fuel receipts for April (if available)
• Heating oil bills for April (if available)

The student is then to compute annual per capita CO2 emissions for his or her family using the following formula.

Type	Amount used		Coefficient	CO2 Emitted
Electricity	_______ kwh	X	0.34	=	__________ kg
LP gas	_______ cubic meters	X	6.00	=	__________ kg
City gas	_______ cubic meters	X	2.08	=	__________ kg
Water	_______ cubic meters	X	0.36	=	__________ kg
Gasoline	_______ liters	X	2.32	=	__________ kg
Diesel fuel	_______ liters	X	2.62	=	__________ kg
Heating oil	_______ liters	X	2.49	=	__________ kg
				Total	(a)__________ kg

(a) divided by number of persons in family = (b)______________ kg

(b) multiplied by 12 months = (c)_______________ kg per capital annual CO2 emissions for family

For reference, in 2007, average per capita residential CO2 emissions were 2166 kg. The combined industrial, societal and residential emissions were 9540 kg per capita.