Age Group: KS3 (Ages 11-14)

The Biggest Footprint is a one-of-a-kind, creative book. It tells the story of humans (all eight billion of us) and how our choices, both in the past and present, are affecting our planet. It also explores how we can all help to put it right and continue to do more to look after our world.

The Biggest Footprint begins when a mega human is created from all eight billion people being put into the ‘smooshing machine’. As a mega human, we take a journey and learn about our footprint choices on the world. We also put other items through the smooshing machine to compare their sizes, examples of which include all the tigers in the world, all the food and food waste in the world, as well as all fossil fuels.

The book does celebrate the good efforts that we are making – trying to eat less meat, recycling and conservation efforts as examples, but it poses the question throughout each page: could we be doing more?

The book has been written in an informal and fun way that is bound to engage readers of different age groups. The facts and statistics included are incredibly interesting and where there is more complex vocabulary used, the book provides teaching opportunities and discussions that would work well in geography lessons.