Undergraduate Research Symposium

Abstract

Sustainability is of great interest to those at the University of Minnesota, Morris, and being in a farming community allows for sustainable food consumption. Though there are opportunities to practice in food sustainability locally, there is a lack of knowledge of these practices on the university campus. Our understanding of the subject and the target audience of university students has led to our belief that a strong social media presence is adequate in providing information about local food sustainability, particularly the Morris Area Farmers Market. A publicity campaign using social media sites, such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram provide our target audience with eye-catching information through photos and videos of interviews of students and vendors in order to make the videos more persuasive and have more impact on the audience. We have generated and posted content for these various sites throughout the semester. We have also curated rules of thumb for efficient posts to share with the Board Chair so that the sites may continue to provide information and catch attention. The farmers market occurs mostly during the summer, when there are less students on campus, but there is overlap between the growing and school seasons, as the final farmers market takes place on the campus mall. We hope to increase the student presence at the Morris Area Farmers Market as well as the views to the social media sites, and build a better connection between the campus and community through the summer of 2017.