3E: Filling an Education Gap: Utah’s Statewide Clean Air Marketing Contest

Now celebrating its ten year anniversary, the Utah High School Clean Air Marketing Contest has engaged over 6,500 teens on the topic of air pollution in Utah, teaching responsible transportation strategies and helping them understand how to preserve air quality in their own communities. The contest message focuses on practical strategies: limiting idling, carpooling, taking the bus, trip chaining, biking, and avoiding the drive-thru. Combining environmental science, art, and savvy marketing, teens are given the opportunity to create public service announcements to promote clean air actions that appeal to their high school peers and to Utah citizens.

Contest entries are often funny, edgy, and provocative—reflecting teen culture. Participants win cash and gift cards donated by Utah businesses, foundations, and citizens. This year over a thousand teens across the state participated, from Whitehorse High School on the Navajo Nation in the south to Preston High School in Idaho (which shares northern Utah’s airshed in Cache Valley).

Surveys conducted after the contest show that teens have a greater willingness and commitment to act in ways that will preserve air quality, such as shutting off their engines and sharing rides. Teens report persuading their parents to do the same in what is called “the inconvenient youth” effect. Parents also generally welcome such interactions. This research has shown a gap in Utah school curricula on air quality and pollution, even though it is a high-profile and high-impact issue affecting everyone in the state. Most participants reported that the contest offered the only formal clean air education they recall receiving.