Students Make “Beautiful Their Business” Through Crafting Keep Florida Beautiful Communication Campaigns
The Campus as a Living Laboratory (Living Lab) program is an FSU Sustainable Campus initiative that pairs courses with community partners to give students practical and hands-on experience through multidisciplinary learning and applied research projects. Having a community partner to conduct research for and present final products to is beneficial on both ends, as evident through the Fall ‘24 Social Media Campaigns course.
The Social Media Campaigns course (COM 5565) offers graduate students a hands-on approach to learning the ever-changing medium, that is online social media platforms. Throughout the semester, students develop a social media campaign for a community partner, designing template posts, captions, timelines, and more across various platforms. This gives students valuable hands-on experience, while the client benefits from improved social media strategies and receives content ready for online posting. 
In Fall 2024, the Social Media Campaigns course was paired with Keep Florida Beautiful (KFB), a nonprofit that works to establish a sense of shared responsibility for improving Florida environments among citizens, visitors, and communities. As a state affiliate of Keep America Beautiful, KFB is an umbrella organization that brings together more than 40 county and city affiliates.
To build campaigns, students were split into groups of 4 to 5, and assigned a topic selected by KFB. This included promoting monthly donations to KFB, recruiting new affiliates, implementing a litter control symbol, pushing the KFB newsletter, engaging new board members, and advocating for KFB’s motto of “Beautiful is Our Business”. Each group created multiple pieces of content for KFB, in addition to general proposals on how KFB could improve their online communication based on background research about the client’s social media presence that the students had conducted.
Students met with KFB representatives once a month throughout the semester, providing time to receive feedback on their ideas and ask questions. Having regular meetings allowed students to develop their professional communication skills as they learned to understand what a community partner wants and turn those requests into a successful final product. 
“I have not yet received the finished projects, but I will say that I loved working with Dr. Dale and her class. I strongly believe that the projects developed by her class will significantly contribute to Keep Florida Beautiful's upcoming marketing campaigns. They provided valuable insights into current trends and offered constructive feedback on how we can expand our reach across the state. I'm eager to begin implementing many of their recommendations,” said Sherry Carpenter, Executive Director of Keep Florida Beautiful.
As online communication platforms continue to evolve, and more people increasingly rely on them for information, students in this field must master effective communication strategies to reach their target audience online. This also applies to sustainable and environmental communication, where successfully conveying messages to a broader audience requires adapting communication methods to different platforms. While the students gained a deeper understanding of the environmental topics for which they were creating campaigns, they all learned an essential lesson in presenting environmental information in a clear, relatable way that resonates with their intended audience.
To learn more about the Living Lab program and how it connects students with community partners to tackle real-world challenges, visit FSU's Office of Sustainability website at https://sustainablecampus.fsu.edu/living-lab-program.