{"id":12318,"date":"2025-04-30T09:21:05","date_gmt":"2025-04-30T14:21:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin-new\/?post_type=campus_story&p=12318"},"modified":"2025-04-30T09:21:05","modified_gmt":"2025-04-30T14:21:05","slug":"microwhat-uw-stout-students-social-awareness-campaign-on-microplastics-wins-minnesota-adfed-award","status":"publish","type":"campus_story","link":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/story\/microwhat-uw-stout-students-social-awareness-campaign-on-microplastics-wins-minnesota-adfed-award\/","title":{"rendered":"MicroWhat?: UW-Stout student\u2019s social awareness campaign on microplastics wins Minnesota AdFed award"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Photo<\/a>
“MicroWhat?” won a Silver Pin award at the Minnesota AdFed awards \/ Ashley Jandro<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

M.F.A. design, graphic design students receive several awards during annual regional competition<\/h2>\n

Plastic is the most prevalent type of marine debris found in the oceans and Great Lakes, with an estimated\u00a033 billion pounds of plastic trash<\/a>\u00a0entering the oceans every year. And microplastics \u2013 those about the size of a pencil eraser and smaller \u2013\u00a0come in a variety of forms<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Microplastics are everywhere \u2013 in the air and water and even in the food we eat \u2013 posing risks to both the health of the environment and to people. To address this concern, University of Wisconsin-Stout\u00a0Master of Fine Arts in design<\/a>\u00a0student\u00a0Ashley Jandro<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>created a social awareness campaign focusing on microplastics.<\/p>\n

For her campaign\u00a0\u201cMicroWhat?,\u201d<\/a>\u00a0she received a Student \u2013 Integrated Consumer Campaign Silver Pin Winner\u00a0for her ad at the\u00a0Minnesota AdFed<\/a>\u00a0awards, sponsored by the\u00a0Advertising Federation of Minnesota<\/a>\u00a0on Feb. 28, at the Machine Shop in Minneapolis.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe amount of damage microplastics can do to our ecosystems and bodies is alarming. By notifying the public of their impacts, there is hope to cut down on plastics and find alternatives for material,\u201d said Jandro, who is interested in sustainability.<\/p>\n

Jandro entered the competition as part of an assignment in\u00a0Professor Nagesh Shinde<\/strong>\u2019s Advertising Design class.\u00a0She submitted \u201cMicroWhat?\u201d to the integrated campaign category, designing a campaign with multiple applications across different platforms.<\/p>\n

She designed outdoor and indoor installations with animations of characters based on different types of microplastics, sharing statistics and details about how microplastics affect the environment and the human body. She also created magazine and Instagram ads and a corresponding app.<\/p>\n

Kids can teach adults about sustainable practices<\/h3>\n

Geared toward a younger audience, \u201cMicroWhat?\u201d encourages learning through gamification. A QR code directs a user to a downloadable Monster app, which includes a game to \u201ccollect\u201d monsters using augmented reality, similar to Pok\u00e9mon-Go, and a mini-challenge to go \u201cA Day Without,\u201d bringing awareness to how much plastic the user actually uses in a day.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel that educating the younger audience is where we lack a bit. Education is very focused on recycling, however, there are a lot of materials that are not able to be recycled,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the information young people are given will help them make smarter decisions in the future. There is this ideology of kids teaching parents as they are having fun playing the game. They can inform the older generation of what they are learning and find better solutions or materials that they could be using rather than plastic.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jandro doesn\u2019t normally create content for young adults. Her creative process relied heavily on research and visual storytelling.<\/p>\n

\u201cHonestly, it was a very fun journey. I played with a lot of color and tried to gamify the content to make it more interesting for that age group,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had fun creating the campaign, and the award was just the icing on the cake,\u201d said Jandro, who earned her\u00a0B.F.A. in graphic design and interactive media<\/a>\u00a0from UW-Stout in 2023. \u201cIn my undergrad, I loved the environment and thrived here. So, when I got the opportunity to continue my education at UW-Stout, there was no doubt in my mind of where I wanted to go for my master\u2019s.\u201d<\/p>\n

M.F.A. in design\u00a0Program Director Erik Evensen<\/strong>\u00a0is excited that Jandro received the accolade. \u201cAshley is an incredibly motivated student, with a diverse set of interests in the Graphic Design field. She has been diligently pursuing a research agenda focusing on packaging, sustainability and the user experience. She\u2019s a great designer,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Several UW-Stout graphic design students were awarded at this year\u2019s AdFed as well:<\/p>\n