We have always faced one unavoidable issue in school in the last years of our high school lives: the very humid, uncomfortable and frustrating feeling in our classroom during the school year. For each year that goes by due to the sacrifices made by our school administrators to handle thousands of students registering each year, this issue gets worse.

The size of the high school classroom is around 7.0 meters in width / depth x 9.00 meters in length. Ideally, the proposed DepEd (Ministry of Education) parameter restricts students in Grades 5 to 12 to a maximum of 40. They were forced to split the classrooms having an imbalance ratio with the number of students to the room size. With this matter at hand, it can be concluded that if we don't establish a solution, the current situation will just get out of hand.

But in order to find a solution, the variables that make up the entire problem itself have yet to be found. Our team was therefore formed to explore the causes of the issue we are facing and to assist others to be educated and help create a solid solution that will benefit all.

After tracing down the factors that lead up to our problem, we narrowed everything down to the most influential factor that we will investigate: CARBON EMISSIONS and CARBON FOOTPRINTS.

Carbon footprint refers to the amount of greenhouse gases (GHGs) --those which contain carbon such as CH4, CO2(primary), CO-- that are released by any human activity into the atmosphere of our earth. Carbon footprints can be measured or added by a person, a community or an organization to each and every action taken. The key contributors to major environmental problems such as climate change, global warming and other unprecedented environmental phenomena occurring in our planet are these emissions (Figure 5 below). The carbon concentration has already reached 414 parts per million (ppm) to date, but sadly, only a handful of individuals are aware of this problem.

As students, being aware of this issue, we wanted to make a shift to make others aware of the huge problem we face and the repercussions we currently experience. So, we have created an application that tells you what the carbon footprint and carbon emissions are. An application that allows us to be mindful of our environment and helps us make better choices about life that will mitigate the problems caused by carbon emissions.

We focused on this challenge because we don't just stand in one position and do nothing about this kind of problem, we want to make a difference about this stuff. Luckily, NASA has given us the chance to do something about what is happening in our country. We brainstormed about how to create a thing that can somehow make a difference in the future after learning about this challenge, that's when we came up with an app that will help you be conscious of your own carbon footprint and an app that will provide you with some carbon concentration knowledge locally and globally.

We just made a prototype of the app because we are just students and not an expert in coding. We have built a storyboard of what we want to look like on our app. We discussed the UI and UX as well. In making the software prototype, we used Figma and Photoshop.

It's very difficult to do this digitally because there are several issues and variables that affect us in doing this, the main challenge is the internet connectivity because if you only have a normal connectivity, the internet is very slow in our country, so it's not consistent to communicate with each other. It's hard to discuss electronically because you can't articulate the whole concept in just one go, it's always distinct to speak face to face. Yet we are delighted to have done this challenge and to be able to present what we have done with the challenge. Our team was only centered and patient with the application, and getting those things made it possible for us to do this.

For the key visualization about Climate Change (2002-2016), we will utilize the following Data:

1. Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) concentration of mid-tropospheric carbon dioxide in parts per million (ppm) (A)
2. NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS)'s Global Land-Ocean Temperature Index (B)
3. NASA Satellite Observations on Arctic Sea Ice Minimum (C)

First, Carbon dioxide (CO2) is an important heat-trapping (greenhouse) gas, which is released through human activities such as deforestation and burning fossil fuels, as well as natural processes such as respiration and volcanic eruptions.

Second, according to an ongoing temperature analysis conducted by scientists at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), the average global temperature on Earth has increased by a little more than 1° Celsius (2° Fahrenheit) since 1880. Two-thirds of the warming has occurred since 1975, at a rate of roughly 0.15-0.20°C per decade.

And lastly, Sea ice is a critical player in the changing atmosphere on Earth. Wagner said it behaves like a mirrored hat sitting on top of the world. The heat of the sun would warm the oceans without that hat, contributing to further melting. The oceans, in turn, release more moisture, which tends to affect the circulation of the atmosphere and cause the Arctic permafrost to melt. This further raises global warming, in turn.

The Worldview tool from NASA's Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS) also provides the capability to view full-resolution satellite imagery layers of the major greenhouse gases and then download the underlying data:

1. Water Vapor (Total Column Average) from Orbiting Carbon Observatory 3 (OCO-3) Mission
2. Carbon Dioxide (Total Column Average) from Orbiting Carbon Observatory 3 (OCO-3) Mission
3. Methane (L3, 400 hPa, Night, Daily) from Atmospheric Infrared Sounder - Aqua Project Science of NASA (Aqua / AIRS)
4. Ozone Mixing Ratio at 50hPa (Monthly) from Modern-Era Retrospective analysis for Research and Applications, version 2 (MERRA-2)
5. Nitrous Oxide (46 hPa, Day and Night) from Aura Microwave Limb Sounder (Aura / MLS)

Such data will give users a global perspective on a Climate Change. These will be included in the app for users to fully appreciate the condition we are facing.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLGsT9xdVQEHOvDOkZDtUvC77AD_1e7CJp

DATA:

• https://earthdata.nasa.gov/
• https://worldview.earthdata.nasa.gov/
• https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/carbon-dioxide/
• https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/global-temperature/
• https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/arctic-sea-ice/
• https://www.worldometers.info/co2-emissions/philippines-co2-emissions/
• https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/philippines/

RESOURCES:

BOOK

• Abano, I., Navarro, R., & Perez, R. (2016). Klima 101: A Climate Change Guidebook for Philippine Journalists [E-book]. https://earthjournalism.net/sites/default/files/2019-10/Klima101%20Guidebook.compressed.pdf

REPORTS

• JAPAN INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION AGENCY (JICA) & NATIONAL ECONOMIC AND DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY (NEDA). (2014, March). ROADMAP FOR TRANSPORT INFRASTRUCTURE DEVELOPMENT FOR METRO MANILA AND ITS SURROUNDING AREAS (REGION III & REGION IV-A). ALMEC Corporation. http://www.neda.gov.ph/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/FR-TR1-ENVI-AND-RISK-12149621.pdf

WEBSITES

• Malipot, M. (2020, July 23). DepEd open to moving school calendar, reminds that public schools are not built for ‘summer.’ Manila Bulletin. https://mb.com.ph/2020/04/08/deped-open-to-moving-school-calendar-reminds-that-public-schools-are-not-built-for-summer/
• Mateo, J. (2018, March 28). Teacher-student ratio improves in public schools. Philstar.Com. https://www.philstar.com/other-sections/education-and-home/2018/03/29/1801232/teacher-student-ratio-improves-public-schools#:~:text=Responding%20to%20a%20proposed%20legislation,in%20Grades%205%20to%2012
• https://www.teacherph.com/deped-school-buildings-standards/#:~:text=a.&text=The%20size%20of%20the%20classroom,the%20centers%20of%20the%20walls.