In 2020, the Knowledge Exchange launched KXPRESS, a scholarship opportunity open to all students across the university. Students were tasked with creating science communication products related to one of the five Grand Challenges identified by our college: water quality, the urban-rural interface, farm and community stress, food waste, and food security. Two exceptional projects were awarded $500 scholarships and mentoring from the KX staff to further develop their ideas, and a third project was awarded $100.
The key to success in KXPRESS is thinking outside the box: we set no specific submission format for students to follow. Instead, KX encouraged students to think creatively and find the most effective methods for communicating their ideas. Likewise, if their ideas required more resources than were currently available to them, we encouraged students to submit project proposals to be developed with the help of KX staff over the next year.
Each of these winning projects exemplify exactly the sort of creative communication we strive both to create and highlight in the work of others. The 2020 winners were awarded scholarships ranging from $100 to $500 dollars.
Gabriella’s project focused on water quality. She proposed the creation of an interactive website that teaches users about the history of water quality in Lake Erie. Her site would incorporate both text and visual elements so that it can be easily understood by people of all ages. Gabriella was inspired to create the site by events in her own life: in her hometown of Toledo, Ohio in 2014, a toxic algal bloom caused the municipal water supply to become unsafe for drinking or bathing.
Water quality issues have only intensified since then, and the health of the Lake Erie ecosystem continues to be vital to the well-being of all Ohioans. Gabriella’s project approach seeks to address this pressing issue through increased education and awareness. Gabriella was awarded $500 to complete her project.
Sydney’s project makes full use of its unique format to deliver a heartfelt and impactful message as she tackled the issue of water quality. A dance major, Sydney choreographed short dances to be performed by five of her peers which she then filmed in the hauntingly beautiful landscape of Indiana Dunes National Park. Her video can be viewed here.
Each dancer in the video represents a different natural environment: snow, woods, water, marshlands, or sand dunes. Sydney explains that each dancer first appears alone and that their expressive movements are meant to convey a sense of struggle and turmoil. But when all five dancers—all five environments—combine, they create a state of equilibrium, reflecting the natural balance of the world around us. Captions detailing factual information about water quality at the bottom of her video combine with the emotional movements of the dancers and soft, eerie music to form a moving project. Modern dance and environmental science may seem like incompatible disciplines, but Sydney’s video shows how interdisciplinary collaboration can give rise to poignant new methods of communication. Sydney received $500 for her project work.
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Aishwarya, Shivani, and Jeffrey’s group project aims to tackle a serious issue—food waste—in a unique way. The group proposed a series of videos to educate the public about issues of food waste and consumer decisions. In their scholarship application, Aishwarya explains that she and her colleagues were inspired to establish a student organization at OSU called Know Food Waste (KNW) once they realized that wasting food ran counterintuitive to their goals as food science students. KNW awareness about all things food waste in order to help create a more informed public.
After screening the web for videos about food waste, the group discovered that the majority of videos employ facts and statistics as a means of education and persuasion. Such enormous figures can seem daunting and frightening in the eyes of viewers. In their videos, the group wanted to frame food waste issues in a positive manner, focusing on goals and target results rather than doom and gloom. The group was awarded $100 to continue their project.
Congratulations to the inaugural KXpress scholarship winners! Their projects demonstrate the innumerable ways that students, educators, and professionals can create a more well-informed public through creative methods to communicate complex scientific ideas. To learn more about KXpress, check out the Student Spotlight!