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Students Create Fresh AirWaves
(Jun-04-2003)
High school students are hitting the Lower Mainland’s airwaves with fresh ads linking vehicle emissions to climate change and personal health.
The 2003 AirCare AirWaves Radio Scholarship Contest awarded three $1,000 scholarships to students who wrote the best 30-second radio spots for the contest, open to all Grade 11 and 12 Lower Mainland and Fraser Valley students. The winning ads were produced by Z95.3 FM’s production team over the past two weeks, with the winning students voicing the ads and controlling their creative direction, for play on four Lower Mainland and Fraser Valley radio stations.
“Ads created by young drivers will hopefully reach other young drivers with the important message about how personal vehicles impact personal health and contribute to climate change,” says AirCare CEO Martin Lay. “I’m optimistic these ads will convince drivers of all ages to take simple steps to reduce air pollution, which will not only improve our environment and the health of everyone, but help Canada meet its Kyoto Protocol obligations.”
Spots by Grade 12 Cambie Secondary student Steve Fernandes, Grade 11 Lord Tweedsmuir student Allysha Reeves, and the Grade 11 team of Camilla Jeffries-Chung from York House and Rebecca Simms from David Thompson Secondary were selected as this year’s winners.
Reeves says while conducting research for her ad she was surprised to discover light duty vehicles produce more than half of the Lower Mainland’s air pollution.
“I thought it was more to do with factory pollution, and that cars were a small part of it,” she says.
Reeves adds she learned a lot working with a producer at a “big time” radio station to produce her ad, which she expects will help her pursue her chosen career in either radio broadcasting or acting.
Reeves’ ad focuses on the fact air pollution is a major contributor to childhood asthma, which is currently the number-one reason for hospital room emergency visits by children.
Cambie student Fernandes said he was inspired to take on AirWaves because of the creativity involved in writing a radio commercial.
“It’s not like your regular essay writing,” he says. “It’s more creative, so I said ‘I might as well give it a shot.’”
He adds his view on the project changed a bit while he was researching air pollution, though he has always valued Canada’s relatively clean air. Fernandes immigrated to Canada from India in 1995, and says he remembers how polluted their air was in big Indian cities and especially in Hong Kong, where his family changed planes enroute to Canada.
“The air was so thick.”
He says Canada is making “good progress” on air pollution thanks to programs like AirCare, but that he’s finding some areas remind him of the pollution he breathed in India and Hong Kong.
Fernandes wrote an ad about the impact cars have on climate change and encouraging drivers to drive less and maintain their vehicles.
Long-time friends Jeffries-Chung and Simms teamed up to create an ad with an action versus consequence theme. After a few ideas were discarded, they hit upon Aunt Gertrude, and how it is more dangerous to pollute than to insult her cooking.
Jeffries-Chung is planning to use her portion of the scholarship to help her take on medical school, while Simms plans to pursue something artistic.
AirCare created AirWaves three years ago to reach young drivers with information about the impact vehicle emissions have on the environment and personal health. This year, the contest was expanded from two scholarships to three with funding assistance from the B.C. Lung Association, the David Suzuki Foundation, and the BC Medical Association. The ads will play a combined total of about 1,600 times on Z95.3 FM, 650 CISL, CKNW 980 and StarFM.
AirCare is expanding AirWaves again over the next year thanks to a $100,000 grant from Environment Canada and the Climate Change Action Fund. The $150-million Fund was created by the federal government in 1998 to help Canada meet Kyoto Protocol obligations.
AirCare’s grant is earmarked for the new AirWaves Climate Action Initiative, aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions through community education and communication with the Lower Mainland and Fraser Valley’s 1.2-million drivers, plus high school students. AirCare staff will expand their existing infrastructure for communicating with drivers and students to include information about greenhouse gas emissions and Kyoto.
“According to the Greater Vancouver Regional District’s 2000 Emission Inventory, light duty vehicles contribute about 27 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions in the GVRD and Fraser Valley Regional District region as well as 54 per cent of common air contaminants,” says AirCare’s Lay. “We believe the best way to communicate the important fact that everyone’s driving habits make a difference is by speaking directly to drivers. These creative radio ads accomplish this goal.” (To review the report 2000 Emission for the Lower Fraser Valley Airshed published by GVRD in October 2002, visit the Metro Vancouver website.
AirCare will use the grant to better promote the AirWaves Radio Scholarship Contest in schools; play the winning spots on AirCare FM, broadcast from the 12 AirCare testing sites; speak in high schools about climate change; run a series of feature ads in community and daily newspapers; send two community displays on tour around regional communities; enhance climate change information on the AirCare website, and produce posters and tip sheets for distribution to AirCare customers.
“We hope to reach every one of the 1.2-million Lower Mainland and Fraser Valley drivers,” Lay says.
For more information, contact:
Rashpal Rai
Public Relations
Envirotest Canada, contractor for AirCare
Rashpal.Rai@bc.etest.com
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