Quiet Planet

The COVID-19 outbreak and the resulting social distancing recommendations and related restrictions have led to numerous short-term changes in economic and social activity around the world, all of which may have impacts on our environment. Your challenge is to use space-based data to document the local to global environmental changes caused by COVID-19 and the associated societal responses.

Flatten the Carbon Curve

Summary

After looking at NASA atmospheric data of the earth and the steep decline in CO2 emissions since social isolation began, we decided that this positive trend shouldn’t end when social isolation does. We build a tool that civilians can use to track their personal carbon footprint. With each positive action that a user makes (reducing waste, eliminating one use plastics..etc), their overall carbon footprint decreases. Our tool helps users visualize how their actions affect the health of the earth.

How We Addressed This Challenge

Covid-19 has shed light on the fact that a world with significantly lower carbon emissions is possible. Our project assigns individual users an approximate carbon “score” through the use of a carbon emissions calculator and tailored questions. From one-use plastic buying, to general lifestyle questions, we help users visualize their carbon footprint and give them the opportunity to lower it through environmentally friendly alternatives. From there, the user can add daily positive tasks that reduce their overall footprint size. We aim to show every user that even the smallest of lifestyle changes can significantly reduce their footprint!

How We Developed This Project

Our team was struck by the overwhelming pre-Covid vs. post-Covid data proving that a healthier world can indeed be a reality. We used the Space agency data as a building block to help us understand if lower emissions are a possibility even without social isolation. We used Flutter (Java) and GitHub to develop our project. As a team we began the challenge with many different skill sets and coding abilities but were able to adapt, divide, and conquer as the challenge progressed. The coding team members built the emissions calculator from scratch using data that we scraped from NASA and other space agency carbon emissions data.

Project Demo

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fqYB9FZSGvmEA1OT5nAD-QGQdQLUl0H9/view?usp=sharing


Data & Resources

NASA DATA: 

https://earthdata.nasa.gov/

https://earthdata.nasa.gov/earth-observation-data/near-real-time

https://earthdata.nasa.gov/learn/pathfinders/covid-19

https://sedac.ciesin.columbia.edu/mapping/popest/covid-19/

https://github.com/nasa

JAXA DATA: 

https://www.eorc.jaxa.jp/ptree/index.html

https://gportal.jaxa.jp/gpr/?lang=en

OTHER DATA:

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01497-0

Results of forced confinement:

Tags
#reduceyourcarbonfootprint #flattenthecarboncurve #carbonfootprint #sustainability #peacetech
Global Judging
This project was submitted for consideration during the Space Apps Global Judging process.