Description
Get your students thinking about sustainability with this fun, Christmas-themed high school science activity! Using simplified Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) data, students break down and compare the carbon footprints of real vs. artificial Christmas trees over a 10-year period. It’s a mix of data analysis, CER writing, environmental science, and real-life decision-making.
Students will learn about how scientists evaluate the carbon footprint of real and artificial trees, including manufacturing, transportation, use, and disposal. Then they’ll analyze data, calculate emissions, and write a Claim–Evidence–Reasoning (CER) response to answer the big question:
Which type of Christmas tree has a smaller carbon footprint – real or artificial?
Finally, students take what they have learned and create an infographic designed to educate and influence the public to make environmentally friendly Christmas choices.
What’s Included:
- Student handout explaining Life Cycle Assessments (LCAs) and clear, student friendly explanations of sustainability concepts
- Data tables for real & artificial tree footprints
– production emissions
– transportation emissions
– disposal impacts
– recycling effects - Student calculation questions
- CER writing task
- Discussion questions
- Infographic Project instructions and 100 point rubric with four prompts to choose from, easy differentiation for time and challenge level
- Teacher Answer Key with completed calculations and sample CER response
- Teaching Guide with tips for how to use this in class
Why Teachers Love This Resource:
- Seasonal learning! Perfect for December without passing up on instructional time
- Fully scaffolded. Students can complete independently, everything they need is included, no direct instruction or Google searching needed!
- Real data, simplified for classrooms based on compiled LCA research from multiple environmental science sources
- Great for critical thinking! Students must interpret data, analyze trade-offs, and defend their conclusions
Perfect for:
- High school Environmental Science
- Biology & Earth Science
- NGSS-aligned lessons
- Holiday weeks that still need real science learning!
Click here to see a preview of this fun Christmas Carbon Footprint activity!
See what some happy teachers are saying about this resource in our Teachers Pay Teachers store!
I liked that students got to see real numbers and got to experience a little bit of what environmentalists do when deciding how to balance human needs vs. nature needs. – Mrs Tran
Thank you for shopping with Science of Curiosity! Here are a few of my favorite science resources:
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*** Stay Curious! ***
