~ Arthur Kopec
English Teacher
~ Arthur Kopec
English Teacher
Embedded Files
English Teacher
How can we raise awareness about environmental issues that impact Taiwan? This is the question our students asked themselves after reading a pair of informative texts about the problem of food waste in America. We wanted to inform others about our own environmental concerns, such as air pollution, soil contamination, and deforestation. However, we decided it wouldn’t be enough to simply write about it. We needed to make something unique and memorable, so that the information we presented would have staying power with our audience.
Public Awareness Campaigns
Our answer? Mascots! Companies use mascots to promote their products. We decided to look at mascots that inspired people to take better care of the Earth. For example, Captain Planet and Smokey Bear were designed to raise awareness about greenhouse gasses and forest fires. By taking a closer look at their successful marketing campaigns, we could generate better ideas on how to create our own. Like Captain Planet and Smokey Bear, our mascots needed to have an attractive design, strong personality, and clear purpose.
After researching environmental issues in Taiwan, students brainstormed ideas for mascots that could represent these issues in a creative way. Each student took on a different role. Some opted for drawing, while others elected to focus on the finer details such as slogans, target audience, and more. They worked together to create a singular vision of their mascot. Once this was accomplished, they could take their vision a step further by creating additional media such as posters and videos featuring the mascot.
Creativity and Purpose
We were constantly surprised by the students’ creativity. Once they realized how much freedom they had, the students exceeded our expectations. Not only did they make posters and videos, but also comic strips, stickers, and even board games! Students designed each creative piece with an explicit purpose: to inform their audience about an environmental issue and persuade them to take action.
One group designed a mascot called Junkie the Jellyfish. Junkie was a jellyfish that lost its exterior due to water contamination but found a new one made of garbage. Students made an animated video in which Junkie told his backstory and offered viewers several ways to prevent ocean pollution. The group went on to make playing cards, infographics, and a song. They promoted their character and message by creating an Instagram account for Junkie the Jellyfish.
A Starting Point for Saving our Planet
It was wonderful to see the students’ progression over this project. They can feel proud to have created something that is truly their own: a unique mascot with a detailed character profile, a collection of creative pieces, and a campaign outline about how their work raises awareness about an environmental issue.
The students worked extremely hard to get to this point. As with any group project, let alone a creative one, differences in opinion are inevitable but the students figured out how to navigate these conflicts in order to move forward. They also learned how to manage their time effectively by planning their goals and accounting for any bumps in the road along the way.
In summary, students learned skills that will be immensely valuable to them in their personal and professional lives, and I am so proud of what they have accomplished. Please check out some of their work on the next page and help save our planet!
Meet our Mascots
Meet our Mascots
★ Tiger Gou 郭守善 606
We created a cool dragon to be the mascot of our awareness campaign. We designed a blue dragon that resembles clean water. He is called Trasher, and when he sees trash, he gets super angry and eats it all up. This teaches the audience to pick up trash because they don't want Trasher to be angry. Our slogan for Trasher is “Just pick it up!” It teaches people a simple message that if you see trash in the ocean, just pick it up, so the ocean would be clean.
★ Dean Chung 鍾定諠 606
Air pollution is a severe problem and can cause damage to the Earth. My team and I decided to create a campaign and help stop air pollution. We developed a marketing campaign to raise awareness of the problem. It is called Rainbow Air, and the slogan is, “Stop air pollution, be the solution!” Our goal is to raise community awareness and ask people to boycott companies that produce too much air pollution. We made a mascot of a Rainbow Unicorn named Kevin because we want the air to be as clean and beautiful as a rainbow. Our campaign includes a comic strip, some stickers, and a hashtag to report companies that create too much pollution in the air. These deployments can be effective because people will remember the character, so they will be conscious of the big problem and will want to help.
★ Cleo Chiang 蔣沐容 604
All around the world, some places are polluted, and animals and plants die because of the polluted air. We were surprised by how air pollution affected the world, so we decided to make flyers, posters, and a persuasive video so people could be aware of the issue.
The mascot we designed is called Blue Magpie the Air Policeman. We chose this type of bird because we have blue magpies around our school. He wears a gas mask to protect himself from polluted air. He stands on a chimney because chimneys from factories always contribute to the polluted atmosphere. The features of our mascot can let people know about air pollution and its effects on the world. The slogan we created that goes with our mascot is, “Don’t be a fool, keep the air clean at school!”
The poster is arranged in sections so students can know clearly what problems and solutions our issue have. We also made an informative video to present and flyers to hand out, in the video and the flyer we talked more about our problem and how we hope students can help out.
★ Andrea Hsieh 謝羽岑 607
Imagine if there was not sufficient water in your life. You couldn’t drink or take a shower. You’d probably find it very difficult to stay alive. So we should stop wasting water. There are many ways to save water. For instance, you can water flowers with the water you use to wash vegetables or rice. If everyone helps save water every day then we can prevent future problems related to water shortage. We made a poster and story book to teach everybody how to save water.
★ Cosmo Kang 康亦喆 607
Our mascot is Garbage Baby. It was originally drawn by my teammate Joanna. This mascot is inspired by one of Mr. Munday’s jokes he said about “feeding his garbage can.” Our mascot has a sad story. Garbage Baby was once a normal garbage can, but because her owner didn’t “feed” her, she got weak and sick. Instead, her owner littered their garbage outside. We came up with a slogan “Don’t be lazy, feed Garbage Baby!” This slogan, along with Garbage Baby’s sad stories, encourage people to store the garbage in the correct way, and throw it in the garbage can.
★ Lucas Hsieh 謝亦維 605
Many ocean animals eat plastic bags that people throw into the ocean. This causes them to suffer and die. Oil spills cause ocean pollution too. Dolphins and whales sometimes inhale the polluted water, also causing them to suffer and die.
To help prevent this problem, we made two mascots. They are Jennifer and Marina. Jennifer is a whale and Marina is a turtle. We created a story for our characters. Marina got stuck in a net and Jennifer came to save her. They found out that there are a lot of plastic bags floating all over the ocean and animals are disappearing. If you want to know more about the story between Jennifer and Marina, we wrote a book about them. In the book, they fight ocean pollution together. “All for the ocean! No pollution!” is their slogan. We posted our characters and slogan on Instagram to tell others our message. We believe that we should keep the ocean clean!
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