8.++Our+Campaign

**Kellogg's** **General Mills** **Mars** **The Body Shop**
 * The Focus of our Campaign is to be one of Positive Advocacy - asking one or more of the following companies to partner with us toward a transition to only** **"de-forestation free" palm oil:**

**Campaign Goal:**  It is essential for humans to be mindful of the impact of their actions for the sustainable future of the Earth’s biodiversity. With this in mind, students have researched and learned about the effect that the current deforestation taking place in Maylasia is having on the indigenous people, their culture, and the wildlife that depends on its ecosystem, specifically Sumatran tigers. Students have researched the impact of the current farming methods for palm oil and developed a campaign to persuade consumers and companies to only purchase palm oil that comes from sustainable farming methods.

**Plan of Action:** After researching what biodiversity is, non-sustainable versus sustainable palm oil, products made with palm oil, and the impact that this demand is creating on the tigers, students began to develop their plan. Their first objective was to create a tagline and logo which would be used for team t-shirts. Their logo was hand drawn in two parts by two students and lettered by a third student. **The tagline created was:** **Tigers are...Innocent, Glorious, Endangered, and are Roaring for Life.** **Sustainable Palm Oil - Use It!** **T-shirts** were printed with the following **logo**, also created by a group of 5th grade students:



Students were set up in an Edmodo site to communicate between their two classes so they would function as one team. Edmodo is a safe educational online social networking site. It is a closed environment that allows students to communicate asynchronously online with each other and their teacher about a class project without concern that unwanted third parties can intrude. Because the teams are in class on different days, Edmodo was a communication bridge for the classes and the teams. Initially, the students planned on delivering an assembly at school in late January. Their campaign kickoff was to be February 1st. However, due to many snow delays, they were unable to meet that deadline. The group met to re-design their campaign during the week of their cancelled assembly. They chose to replace the assembly with a series of 6 public service announcements that would air over our school morning newscast to communicate their message.

They asked their classmates to do the following: 1. Sign a student petition to be sent to 4 companies (General Mills, Mars, The Body Shop, and Kellogg's) that purchase large quantities of palm oil requesting that the companies begin to only purchase sustainable palm oil. The reduction of demand for unsustainable palm oil would help to stop further deforestation of Sumatra's rainforests. 2. Ask their parents and family members over the age of 18 to go to our Wikispace and sign the adult online petition which will accompany the student petition to the 4 companies. 3. Bring in old, used cell phones to be donated to The Philadelphia Zoo, to help them fund their sustainability program. In our community Wikispace, we have embedded a persuasive video that will also accompany the petitions to the 4 companies urging that the purchasers of palm oil make a commitment to only use sustainable palm oil. The persuasive video includes lyrics created by two students and sung by 8 students to the karaoke instrumental version of the popular song "Wrecking Ball". Permission was granted by the owner and is accredited in the video. Our Community Wikispace can be accessed at the following link: http://tigersroaring.wikispaces.com/ <span style="display: block; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%; text-align: left;">To advertise the campaign, we have created bookmarks containing the Wikispace address and our message. These are being given to every student. The PTA has advertised in their newsletter. We have flyers posted throughout the school and being given throughout the community. Select public service announcements are also being sent to the middle and high schools of our district. Our persuasive video was also entered into The White House Student Film Festival. <span style="display: block; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%; text-align: left;">To help promote the campaign, there are a series of rewards: <span style="display: block; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%; text-align: left;">1. The K-2 and 3-5 classroom with the most total student petition signatures, adult petition signatures, and used cell phone contributions will be awarded an Adopt a Tiger from The Philadelphia Zoo. <span style="display: block; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%; text-align: left;">2. The first 100 students to donate old cell phones will pick from a chest of assorted prizes, including animal print slap bracelets, bandanas, sunglasses, and our custom t-shirts. <span style="display: block; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%; text-align: left;">The data collected will be numbers of adult and student signatures and donations of used cell phones. Because the timeframe for collection of signatures will be limited to 2 weeks, students will estimate what greater collection of signatures they would have achieved if their campaign could have been extended over a longer period of time.

<span style="display: block; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%; text-align: left;">The petitions will be digitized into pictures and, together with a CD of the video, both sets of petitions will be sent to the 4 companies. If possible, we are directing them to the Board of Directors, as they are the stewards of the companies. The message is written to be clear to the companies that their consumers are concerned global citizens who: (1) want to maintain the biodiversity of the Earth, (2) provide for all species of wildlife, and (3) respect the customs and cultures of indigenous people who have lived with the rainforests for hundreds of years. <span style="display: block; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%; text-align: left;">**Audience to be reached:** <span style="display: block; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%; text-align: left;">School District, Family, Friends, and the 4 companies to whom the petitions will go: Kellogg's, Mars, General Mills, and The Body Shop.

<span style="display: block; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%; text-align: left;">**Audience Reached:** The audience was a combination of the students within our school, their parents, family members, word of mouth through the community, All Star Karaoke, Siemens We Can Change the World, and the White House Student Film Festival. Flyers were posted and requests were also made on Facebook to increase awareness.

<span style="display: block; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%; text-align: left;"> <span style="display: block; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%; text-align: left;">**Method of Delivery Message:** <span style="display: block; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%; text-align: left;">Letters with pictures of 470 total signed petitions and an accompanying persuasive video were express mailed to each company's Board of Directors. <span style="display: block; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%; text-align: left;">**Timetable:** <span style="display: block; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%; text-align: left;">Original Campaign launch date: January 28, 2014

<span style="display: block; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%; text-align: left;">Revised Campaign launch date: March 4, 2014 <span style="display: block; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%; text-align: left;">Mailing of Letters, petitions, and CD's: March 18, 2014