Hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of food, labor, and water are wasted each year as 30-40% of the food supply in the United States ends up in landfills [1]. Here at Penn State, the university has taken a step to promote the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal #12—responsible consumption and production—by installing screens to display food waste statistics in each dining commons. These screens alternate between displaying the pounds of food wasted for the current and previous day, and displaying previous monthly totals next to the projected waste for the current month. After thorough examination of these displays, both flaws and strengths of the visual design elements, utilization of the rhetorical situation, and deployment of social movement tactics become evident. Since the goal of ensuring responsible consumption and production continues to become more and more important as the global population increases, many other institutions and organizations are also taking steps to promote this goal, such as Global Footprint Network with their Earth Overshoot Day campaign. This campaign, which determines the date each year when humans have exhausted more resources than can be produced in a year, is effective in some ways in which Penn State’s dining commons displays fall short. Though each initiative operates in a vastly different manner (and neither is entirely productive or faulty) the Earth Overshoot Day campaign proves effective in terms of using kairos and establishing trust through ethos, logos, and pathos, as well as the use of a more hopeful tone.
Sources:
Outline:
P2: dining display visual elements
P3: campaign visual elements + use of logos/ethos
P4: rhetorical situation of dining display (blame, implications, wider context)
P5: kairos of dining display (above trash/compost) vs. campaign (specific day, generates pathos)
P6: social movement studies lens of both (dining display: negative reinforcement, commonplaces, first person pronouns; campaign: tone, personalization/action)
P7: conclusion
I really like how the second artifact you chose is one that has strengths where Penn State’s screens have weaknesses. I think that can be a great aid to your essay when you are comparing the two and is a natural flow for writing. The start of your intro definitely grabs attention and keeps the reader engaged in the essay.
Your speech outline is clear and easy to follow from both a speaker and listener perspective!
The hook was great it catches attention and raises an issue at the same time. I also like the way both artifacts go together as one gives negative reinforcement whereas the other one is more positive. I cant wait to read your essay about these artifacts.