STARS & Media Literacy

Previous research has established the importance of communicating effectively to change

behavior regarding sustainability. In particular, a lack of knowledge can prevent individuals from

engaging in further sustainable behavior. This project builds on existing work by striving to

understand how knowledgeable UCLA students are and how UCLA Sustainability can leverage

mass communication to increase that knowledge. This project will identify topics that UCLA

students do not understand and devise specific approaches to increase awareness of these topics,

working alongside UCLA Sustainability to optimize existing communication channels. We will

need to collect data using multiple methods, including interviews, focus groups, and a survey.

Our initial interviews with sustainability professionals provided guidance on how to measure

sustainability literacy and how to craft communication materials that will resonate with the

student body. While our team initially encountered challenges with narrowing our scope and

constructing a survey given our tight timeline, these interviews have also helped clarify our

project’s direction. Our focus groups allowed us to gather qualitative data about how students

prefer to receive information. Our survey results revealed that, while students knew much less

about UCLA policies compared to general sustainability knowledge. Ultimately, findings will

help inform UCLA’s next Sustainability Tracking, Assessment & Rating System (STARS) report

at the end of this year and contribute to a more sustainable campus by increasing sustainability

knowledge on campus through mass communications.

Stakeholder: Christophe LaBelle, Sustainability Analyst

Team Leads: Mario Moreno and Tiffany Lieu

Team Members: Baria Alaswad, Justine Lim, Mack Lyons, Olivia Teich, Grayson Sciacqua

STARS and Media Literacy Final Report