Inspiration

UNESCO works on the SDGs to create a better world for all people on the earth. But it is challenging to achieve those great goals. In the past decades, more and more people raise awareness about environmental issues. We can see many countries’ governments have signed international treaties, such as Kyoto Protocol and Paris Agreement. However, on Nov. 4, 2019, the Trump administration withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement on climate change, “leaving global climate diplomats to plot a way forward without the cooperation of the world’s largest economy” (Friedman, 2019). In the article, The Mindsets of Political Compromise, Amy Gutmann and Dennis Thompson stated that “the resistance to democratic compromise is anchored in what we call an uncompromising mindset, a cluster of attitudes and arguments that encourage standing on principle and mistrusting opponents. This mindset is conducive to campaigning, but not to governing” (2010). Is it reasonable that a government withdraws from an international treaty that aims to protect the environment? How to spot fake news? While the information is contradicting, we need critical thinking. 

Guiding Statement

Persuasion, influence, and engagement is to understand the interests, position, and attitude of the targeting audiences. They aim to facilitate communication and lead the targeting audiences’ behavior. Persuasion, influence, and engagement is definitely not simply writing an article or sharing a video.

Summary

I have prepared a WordPress site that is designed for future ENTR 2120 students. The topic that I believe needs addressing is best summarized as fact-checking on environmentally friendly knowledge,  the government’s environmental policies, and environmental news. This topic is related to SDG#13, Climate Action, in the following ways: 1. The topics are related to environmental issues, such as renewable energy, green technology, or environmental news. 2. The government’s environmental policies influence and lead the conduct of business and people.

More simply put, my goal(s) for this creation is/are to persuade the future ENTR 2120 students to apply critical thinking skills on reading and interpreting environmental news and policies and increase environmental consciousness.

Purpose

My work is designed to illustrate to:

• Persuade: Apply the theory of the Elaboration Likelihood Model and the theory of Motivation & Goals. The Central Route of Persuasion is used to persuade university students who are analytical, motivated, and highly involved. The articles consider the audience’s interests, position, and attitude. 
• Influence: Based on Perceived Authority. Academic studies are used to build source credibility in my work. Credible citations are used to build authority which helps influence the audiences. Pictures and videos are used to facilitate communication, strengthen the expression of ideas, and make articles more interesting.
• Engage: Application of the Engagement Ladder Theory. The site provides various learning activities to involve the audience, such as asking for comments and providing a questionnaire survey and the knowledge test.

What does success look like to me? Based on my research, analysis, and application of the Engagement Ladder Theory, I see success in the following way:

1. Audiences learn new knowledge and feel the reading is interesting.
2. Audiences give feedback and do the knowledge test.
3. Audiences repeatedly visit my WordPress sites to learn new knowledge and share the sites with their families, friends, or colleagues.

Methodology

I created this work by first examining audience segmentation to develop a profile of university students and understand the targeting audience’s needs, preferences, and perceptions. And then layering in aspects of climate action in order to get students to think critically when reading the news/engaging with media around the topics of climate change and climate action while providing attractive information that increases the audience’s environmental consciousness. Peer review played an important part of my work because it helped me identify the areas that I can improve and what theories can be applied in the work.

Tools & Media

I created this work in WordPress and have integrated different tools and media such as H5P, pictures, and videos. I encourage fellow students, educators, and users to engage with my work by doing the knowledge test.

Sharing my work

My intention is to make my work open educational resource by licensing it Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License and it will reside https://wordpress.kpu.ca/carbonneutrality/

You could see my self-reflection at https://wordpress.kpu.ca/carbonneutrality/2021/08/08/project-self-reflection/

My Legacy

My experience in creating this project has been challenging, interesting, and inspiring.

At first, upon embarking on this journey I felt challenged and was concerned about the delivery format yet excited about the innovation of the course project. Along the way, I learned things I didn’t know before, such as using H5P and WordPress. As I bring this project to a close I hope future students will learn new marketing knowledge and put knowledge into practice and ENTR instructors will consider sharing some excellent examples of the projects which can help students to generate new project ideas.

By Steve (Li Dong) Li, Kwantlen Polytechnic University (2021)