Addison Stodard: "Welcome to another USU Extension Education highlight. My name is Addison Stoddard, and joining me today is Roslyn Brain McCann, professor and sustainable communities extension specialist. Thanks for joining me today."
Roslynn Brain McCann: "Happy to be here."
Addison: "Roslynn is one of the creators of the Utah High School Clean Air Marketing Contest. Teens from high schools around Utah create a PSA encouraging Utahns to keep their air clean. Roslynn, can you tell me a little bit about what these PSA's look like and what they looked like this year, and what maybe some of the topics were?"
Roslynn: "Yeah, sure, each year we are just blown away by the talent of these high schoolers. They range from hand drawn entries to graphically designed entries through computer software. We have criteria including no AI to create the images. There's water colors that come in from the high schoolers.
So it's kind of fun to judge, because there is a broad range of entries the judges are judging. We had over 30 judges statewide for the contest this year, and they're judging on a couple things. One is the artistic appeal of the entries that the high schoolers submit. Another is the environmental message, so making sure that they use a clear call to action on those entries. And a third is using effective marketing techniques. So tapping into pop culture parodies, popular songs that many people know, tapping into Utah, Utah's value systems, for example. Those are the things that the judges are keeping an eye out for.
It's really amazing each year to see what comes through as the top we had this year 1500 competitors in the contest, ranging from southern Idaho all the way down to southern Utah on the Navajo Nation. So it was a great year for us."
Addison: "That's great to see so much variety and see so many people getting excited about this. One thing that I wanted to ask you about is, why are you using teens and people that are in high school? Has it been effective to use teens and maybe, what's the impact on other people? Are other people hearing about this contest through them?"
Roslynn: "Yeah, great question. We actually conducted research on this specific topic. So to answer the second part, yes, the high schoolers are talking to family members and friends about what they're working on and what they've learned through working on these, these PSA's. Also, it turns out that it is correlating with ripple effects of behavior change, and that's why we target high schoolers specifically.
Utah, as you know, has a major air pollution problem. We have strong inversion events in the winter, and those inversion events trap all the pollution down low in the cold air area and until the next storm comes through and cycles that air. That pollution continues to accumulate, and engine combustion is over half of our air pollution is a major source in the state.
And so there's as these high schoolers are learning how to drive, it's a great time to intervene and have them create PSA's and think about clean air actions to really instill within them as at the start of their driving experience for their lives, and so we we encourage them to focus on behaviors such as not idling, so meaning when you're parked and you're not driving anywhere, to just go ahead and turn that key, Turn your engine off, and not emit all those harmful chemicals into the environment, to some other alternative modes of transit, like taking the bus, walking, biking, etc. And so we've had students focus on skateboarding, even as an alternative modes of transit, as long as it's not single driver commuting as the focus, and of course, moving away from idling is another aspect of that. And so it is discouraging that we do have these air pollution events in our state, and we have such an air pollution problem. But it's also a huge opportunity in that every time we are turning an engine off, every time we're choosing a different mode of transit, aside from driving alone in the car, we have we are part of that solution to clean up our air so it's a low hanging fruit in my eyes, to improving our air quality."
Addison: "I love the research is spreading all throughout the state of Utah, and implementing it in teens is making an impact for the future. Thank you so much for joining me today,"
Roslynn: "I really appreciate it."
