Team:SIS Korea/Campaign
Campaigning was an integral aspect of our project in which we were able to raise awareness about the issue and
fundraise a total of 200,000 Korean won.
For our school campaign, we had the opportunity to spread awareness to the school through posters and banners
that we created collectively. In the end, we put up a total of 2 posters, a sticker board, and two banners in
order to convey and gather information; we hoped to convey the magnitude and degree of the problem through
graphs, statistics, etc. and provide information about the processes we are undergoing in an attempt to deter
the expansion of the plastic mismanagement and pollution epidemic. In our first poster, we provided an
overview of our project, elaborating on the steps we took to reach our final goal. Even though our first
poster was very wordy and lengthy, as it explained the steps, many teachers and students were interested to be
presented with our procedures. Our second poster provided a more approachable explanation of the problem, as
it basically depicted the magnitude of the plastic waste issue. In groups, we created a bar graph and a circle
graph in order to illustrate the plastic usage rates of South Korea, the U.S., France, Japan, and the Top 10
Polluters, respectively. We also added a timeline containing the important events and dates pertaining to
plastic pollution on a global scale.
We also had a sticker poster to get a brief understanding of the knowledge that people have about annual
plastic usage per capita. We gave environment-friendly corn-derived straws to whoever made a guess at the
sticker board. After a week into the campaign, we collected and summed up the tallies on the sticker board;
through the sticker chart, we were able to realize that not many people thought that 76 kg of plastic was the
correct answer, rather thinking that each individual consumed 114 kg of plastic every year. Moreover, we saw
that not many people had even an approximate number in their minds. Finally, the banners that we put up next
to the posters had big, bold letters to give a clear idea of what our experiment was about, reading
‘Manipulating the E.Coli to Produce Plastic-Degrading Enzymes’.
A huge number of students took great interest in the posters we set up for the school campaign. From time to
time, there were groups of students who would read closely about the procedure we went through. The campaign
was a very significant event for our project, as we were able to see that more and more people became involved
in our project, and provided their opinions on our experiment. We were happy to see that many students would
observe our project with curiosity and were willing to become more aware and supportive of our project.
We thought that through the school campaign, many people were able to become more aware of the plastic
epidemic and what kind of effects it has on the overall environment. We also believed that people would be
more supportive of the scientific approach that we took in solving the issue by producing plastic-degrading
enzymes, in which many students showed great acknowledgment of our ongoing experiment, and at times asked
questions to our members regarding our project.
In order to convey information and raise awareness about our experiment more universally, our group members
decided to create more educational posters and banners. Our team was able to successfully contact two
organizations to display our posters: iCoop (자연드림테마파크) and Jiri National Park (지리산 국립공원).
First and foremost, “iCoop (자연드림테마파크),” an environmental group in Korea, informed us about the public's
less-than-enough knowledge on plastic and how current trends were shifting to the worse. By having multiple
educational sessions with both the volunteer workers and the managers, we were able to expand our current
understanding of the plastic epidemic and notice a difference between the explanation of plastic issues
written on documents and that of actual experiences of volunteers. By further collaborating with iCoop, our
team was also able to hold a campaign session for over two weeks, where we contacted the general organizer of
iCoop in Jirisan, letting us put up our pre-made posters and banners side to side with those of iCoop.
Although not all of us were able to attend the campaigns at iCoop, by specifying what our main objective was
in the posters themselves, we were able to see a great number of people and tourists showing interest in our
project, while comparing them to the iCoop posters.
Moreover, we were also able to hold public campaigns not only in our school (Seoul International School) but
also in Jiri National Park and Jirisan Tourist Hotel. Jirisan Tourist Hotel is the largest tourist hotel
resort near Jirisan National Park, which is affiliated with Jirisan National Park. The hotel attracts not only
locals and tourists but also foreign tourists, and through the interview with the hotel marketing manager in
connection with the national park campaign, the company obtained cooperation.
Jiri Mountain is a popular wildlife tourist attraction not only for tourists from different regions in Korea
but also from other countries because of the variety of life forms inhabiting it. The main reason why we chose
to hold several public campaigns with Jiri National Park was that their main objective was also based on
reducing plastic waste and usage, where our team members were able to observe their own banners and posters
with words mentioning the preservation of nature by minimizing plastic usage, which we realized was
overlapping with our experiment.
Just like our campaign with iCoop, we were able to exhibit our posters and banners on the walls, doors, and
ticket booths of the national park, next to those of Jiri National Park. The campaign organizers of Jiri
National Park also allowed us to interview and spread information to passing people regarding our topic and
project as shown in the posters. With the “Zero Plastic reward service,” a service that allows tourists to
save up points by participating in plastic reduction activities and purchase and utilize eco-friendly
products, we handed out brochures and pamphlets containing information about the severeness of current plastic
situations and our solution to this epidemic. Furthermore, in order to reduce plastic waste that may
potentially and drastically harm the wildlife native to the mountain, we collaborated with Jiri Mountain
Tourist Hotel to overlook the process of reducing plastic and prevent tourists from irresponsibly throwing
away plastic waste and raise awareness about the plastic epidemic. By communicating with the hotel, the hotel
executives allowed us to promote our project by adding a brief description and our logo in their pamphlets and
postcards. As such, although our team merely started from campaigns in our school, we were able to expand our
influence all the way to Jiri, a popular national park in Korea.
Campaign
