Courtesy: 2025 Utah High School Clean Air Marketing Contest
Copyright Maria Yellowman, Artist, of Whitehorse High School (part of the Navajo Nation)
Courtesy: 2025 Utah High School Clean Air Marketing Contest
Copyright Sander Ounesonepraseuth, Artist, Granger High School
Please, Please, Please Don’t Idle by Me, “Please, Please, Please” parody of Sabrina Carpenter
Courtesy 2025 Utah High School Clean Air Marketing Contest
Copyright Lila Mortensen, Artist, Ridgeline High SchoolEach fall, for the last 10 years, a challenge has gone out to Utah and Southern Idaho’s high school students to create a poster that sends a strong message to the rest of us that the air we breathe is dangerously dirty and we need to do something about it. Judges were called in, and by February the more than 1,000 entries were whittled down to 61 finalists. These posters were then taped to the glass walls in the foyer of USU’s art museum for all of us to come see.
The first poster that stopped me in my tracks was a drawing of our round planet teetering on a steep incline. The planet was split into 2 halves – one with blue water, green lands, a leafy tree, a bicycle. On the other half, all black and white, a car, a cigarette, a dead tree. A rope tied to the planet was wound around the chest of a young boy, who was straining to hold the globe at this dangerous tipping point. I felt the tension in the rope and the uncertainty of the outcome. There was no one in the poster coming to help the boy.
I moved on to the poster of a kid sitting at a bus stop, waiting, while a car passing in front of him was spewing clouds of exhaust. I felt a sharp pang – this kid seemed so vulnerable. We now know that over 50% of the dangerous particles trapped in our winter cold air inversions is caused by emissions from gasoline powered cars. And although it is unreasonable to ask people to stop driving, we can ask people to turn off their engines whenever possible.
“Stop Idling” was in fact the main message presented by these posters – in many incredibly creative ways.
In one poster a troubled young child stared out at us from a car creeping along in a fast-food line-up. Up ahead we saw another car, license plate IDLE, spitting three messages out the tailpipe: “permanently altered,” “whole world,” “seems to change.” Overhead the sign read “Smoke-Thru- Drive-Thru. And at the pick up window, next to the picture of fries, was the shocking message: “These fries are to die for.”
Another poster showed a kid playing a video game in his home. Outside the window you could just make in the hazy atmosphere a car warming up in the driveway, tailpipe puffing away. The message running along the bottom of the poster read, “Turn the Key B4 It’s Game Over.”
Another poster showed a close up of the mirror on the side of car. A kid in a gas mask was emerging from a thick cloud of black smoke, along with the reminder: “Objects in the rear-view mirror are closer than you think.”
Certainly the football player in another poster looked a lot less glamorous in a gas mask.
And finally, a picture of a girl with long blonde hair showed her turning to say something to us, but her face was hidden behind a thick plume of smoke. Her words, however, came through loud and clear:” PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, Don’t Idle by me.”
This is Mary Heers and I’m Wild About Utah.
Credits:
Photos: Courtesy Mary Heers,
Featured Audio: Courtesy & © Shalayne Smith-Needham,
Text: Mary Heers, https://cca.usu.edu/files/awards/art-and-mary-heers-citation.pdf
Additional Reading: Lyle Bingham, https://bridgerlandaudubon.org/
Additional Reading
Wild About Utah, Mary Heers’ Wild About Utah Postings
USU Extension Celebrates 10 Years of Clean Air Contest With Exhibits, Community Art Day, Utah State TODAY, Utah State University, January 29, 2025, https://www.usu.edu/today/story/usu-extension-celebrates-10-years-of-clean-air-contest-with-exhibits-community-art-day
Utah High School Clean Air Marketing Contest, USU Extension Sustainability, Utah State University, https://cleanaircontest.usu.edu/
