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Duksung University students lauded for climate change campaign

October 13, 2015

Four Duksung Women’s University students pose with award certificates at the Sejong Hotel in Myeong-dong, central Seoul, Oct. 2, after being selected as an excellent team for the UNESCO Climate Change Youth Frontier Initiative. They include Hwang Nam-hee in the first row. Others are, from left in the second row, Park Si-hyun, Lee Han-nah, and Han Ji-hye. The team, named Limited Edition, launched an environmental campaign to promote using environment-friendly materials as cosmetic containers. (Courtesy of Duksung Women’s University)

By Chung Hyun-chae

Four students from Duksung Women’s University were chosen as an excellent team for the UNESCO Climate Change Youth Frontier Initiative, a university spokeswoman said Monday.

The initiative was a program organized by the Korean National Commission for the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the Korea Energy Agency, she said.

The team members are three political science sophomores ― Hwang Nam-hee, Han Ji-hye, Park Si-hyun ― and another sophomore Lee Han-nah studying psychology.

The team, named Limited Edition, was lauded for staging an environmental campaign on two occasions ― the first one on the school’s campus on Sept. 17 and second in Daehangno, Seoul, Sept. 24 ― to promote the use of environmentally friendly material as cosmetics containers.

“Plastic takes hundreds of years to decay, and generates carbon dioxide, which causes global warming,” Lee Han-nah, team leader, said. “As female college students, we were thinking of ways to reduce plastic use in our daily lives, and have come up with an idea of applying the green concept to cosmetic containers.”

The students did market research and conducted an online survey while interviewing experts in order to run the campaign.

They attracted attention as they are all humanities majors. Other participants were science and technology students.

“The issue of climate change and energy crisis is also connected to the humanities in that politicians draft related policies,” Lee said. “We will keep working for the sake of the environment.”

Nine other teams, each consisting of four college students, also participated in the program last May.

The participants have worked to raise awareness about climate change and energy insecurity for five months by taking field trips, studying theories and running various team projects.