Energy efficiency for different means of transport

It's difficult to be precise but these are the best figures we can find: Megajoules of energy used to transport 1 person for 1 kilometre by different forms of transport:

train = 0.6
air = 1.5
car = 2.0

Age group: Adaptable for any

How long it will take: 30 minutes

What materials you will need: Pens and paper; a map/maps, large globe and tape measure (make sure you know the scale of the map and can work out actual distances), or a chart showing distances to a lot of places; information about energy efficiency or CO2 production for different means of transport.

The sort of map you need will vary according to the age of the group - the younger they are the more they'll need something very visual. One of those huge, blow-up globes would be good. They will also probably need flat maps so that they can measure distances fairly easily.

The aim of the activity: To think about how much holiday journeys contribute to the greenhouse effect

What to do:
Ask everyone in the group to close their eyes and remember the last holiday when they went away. Ask them to imagine that they are there again and think about where it was.

Everyone opens their eyes and gets into groups of two or three. In turn, each person says -

• Where they went
• How they got there (what sort of vehicle)
• How far they think it was from home.

In whole group:
Go through the places on the big map locating them (Try to avoid the showing off about going to exotic places? Maybe start by talking about a holiday you had fairly near home that was wonderful? Just keep it all to very matter-of-fact tones?)

In their twos or threes ask them to work out how far they each went.

Depending on their age they can then work out the energy consumption of their holidays last year. Get everyone to make a record of:

• How many holidays did you have?
• How many miles did you travel?
• How did you travel?
• How much energy did you use?