Nowadays, more and more people are unfamiliar with food preservatives, they don’t know the difference between natural food preservatives and artificial food preservatives, they may not even know what tiny stuff may lead to the foodborne diseases. Our purpose toward this public education is to enable the public to understand the differences among various types of preservatives, introduce common type of foodborne disease, and how to avoid them.

Our public education includes two aspects: offline promotion speech and games and online live streaming . For the offline speech and games, we introduced some common foodborne disease, ways protect people from got those disease, and difference between natural food preservative and artificial food preservative to the public (include elementary school students, middle school students, high school students, and their parents). We also design some fun games for the child who participate in our activity. We prepared some candies and as the awards for those kids to raise their zeal to join the game and acquire knowledge. Online live streaming can benefit more people who are unable to attend speech in person. It can help us to spread food safety and preservative related knowledge to wielder range of people.

Figure 1 Education mind map

Offline education activity 1：Speech promotion for children and parents

Through a questionnaire survey, we found that the majority of respondents at least have a rough understanding of the difference between natural preservatives and chemical preservatives (28.97%), but there is still a considerable number of people (45.24%) who either know very little or nothing about it, which indicates that it is necessary to educate consumers. Therefore, in order to enhance the public's awareness of food safety, food preservation and protection, and natural food preservatives, we have carried out some offline educational activities.

Our speech is divided into three parts. The first part starts from daily life, especially by giving examples of daily-use products containing preservatives and asking the audience if they have ever experienced discomfort caused by preservatives. The second part then proceeds from these discomforts and foodborne diseases to explain common foodborne diseases to the audience and how to prevent them. The third part follows up on the previous content, especially introducing that as public health awareness increases, the demand for natural preservatives is also growing. At the same time, it introduces to the audience through questions what natural preservatives are and that the ultimate goal of developing natural preservatives is to enable everyone to enjoy products safely and with peace of mind.

Figure 2 Offline activity

We went to the Beijing Science Center to give speeches to children and parents. We prepared speech materials that were easier for children to understand and topics that could make parents more deeply aware that natural preservatives are the current trend. During the speeches, the speakers interacted richly with the audience, enabling them to understand the content more naturally and deeply. At the same time, we coordinated with social media to conduct offline and online activities simultaneously. The quiz with prizes in the event brought the atmosphere to a peak. As more and more children and parents participated, our speeches made more people aware of the potential risks of traditional preservatives and the future popularity and demand for natural and healthy preservatives.

Figure 3 Offline activity

Offline education activity 2：Interactive game for children and parents

Purpose of the game: We have created two interactive games with great care, with a purpose to popularize information about food preservatives among children in an entertaining way. In the "Connect Words to form Phrases" game, children expand their observation and focus capabilities while searching for hidden names of preservatives, with a simultaneous habituation to typical names of preservatives, thus creating a background for comprehension of information presented on food packaging. The "Identification of Natural and Chemical Preservatives" game will make children excel at identifying the sources of preservatives by flipping over cards, comprehend distinctions between natural and chemical preservatives, cultivate scientific thinking in rationally observing food additives, and become more aware of food health. The two games combine education and entertainment, which will arouse children's learning enthusiasm and make them more aware of healthy eating in a celebratory atmosphere.

Game content:

"Connect Words to Form Phrases" game has a large letter grid. Children must search for the names of preservatives such as "sodium benzoate" and "potassium sorbate" from randomly appearing letters. If they spot over three, they are rewarded with candies. The game tests not only their observing skills but also their memory.

Figure 4 Offline activity

Figure 5 Offline activity

Figure 6 Offline activity

In another game, "Identification of Natural Preservatives and Chemical Preservatives", the front and back sides of the cards are printed respectively with pictures of the names of preservatives and information about their origins. When the children flip the cards, they can recognize the categories of preservatives based on the descriptions. If they recognize correctly over three, they can win candies as well. In the process, they become aware of the categorization of preservatives, learn food processing methods, and also acquire the skill of considering food additives from a scientific aspect.

Figure 7 Offline activity

Figure 8 Offline activity

Conclusion and reflection

To popularize knowledge about food preservatives and convey the concept of natural preservatives to children and parents, we held a science popularization activity integrating lectures and interactive games at the Beijing Science Center, achieving positive science promotion results.

The lecture was designed into three parts around the logic of "life perception – health protection – trend interpretation" to meet the needs of different audiences. For the "Connect Words to Form Phrases" game, a large letter grid was set up, and children needed to find the names of preservatives such as "sodium benzoate" and "potassium sorbate" from the grid. Those who found 3 or more names were rewarded with candies, which not only exercised their observation skills but also helped them familiarize themselves with the names of preservative ingredients. In the "Identification of Natural and Chemical Preservatives" game, the front and back sides of the cards were printed with the names of preservatives and their source information respectively. Children could judge the category of preservatives by flipping the cards, and those who made 3 or more correct identifications were also rewarded. This game helped children master the classification standards of preservatives and develop scientific thinking.

Our activity featured diverse forms and reached a large number of participants. However, there is still room for improvement. To ensure that children can retain the knowledge in the long term, we can design small tasks – for example, asking children to check the preservative ingredients on food packaging with their parents at home, or pushing relevant popular science articles online to consolidate the science promotion effect. Meanwhile, to take care of young children with limited literacy, simplified letter combinations can be set up to enhance their participation experience.

Social Media Management

To better promote our project, our team has opened multiple social media accounts for publicity. Each account has a different positioning and publishes different content, aiming to comprehensively promote and explain our project from multiple aspects to the whole society. The social media platforms we have opened include Douyin, Xiaohongshu and Instagram. Among them, Douyin is our main operation account. We have changed the name of our Douyin account to the team name "Peptily Preser" so that others can directly understand our theme content. We post different content on different platforms. For example, on Xiaohongshu, we mainly post videos about our daily life, and on Instagram, we mainly aim to expand our project to the world. At the same time, the video content we post on social media accounts closely follows current hot topics, and we have produced many high-quality videos to increase views. We also incorporate some popular internet buzzwords in the videos to explain our theme content, making it easier for viewers to understand our project. Most importantly, we also conduct live broadcasts in our spare time to interact with fans and live-stream offline activities to promote our project to the greatest extent.

Video link：
Douyin: ( https://v.douyin.com/YuU-PL22CbA/ ZZM:/ 10/23 l@P.kc )
Xiaohongshu:(https://xhslink.com/m/1kFsj1MDYDH )
      

Figure 9 Social media

Figure 10 Social media

Figure 11 Social media

Online Project：Live streaming

While carrying out offline popular science education activities, we also conduct online livestreams via the Douyin platform, and the core purposes of these livestreams are as follows: First, they leverage the reach of online platforms to help more people pay attention to the topic of food safety, including those in cities other than Beijing and even rural areas. This can break the audience limitations of offline activities and expanding the influence of food safety popularization. This free our promotion and popular science efforts from restrictions of time and location, allowing the content to reach audiences anytime and anywhere. Second, as a highly intuitive method, livestreams can show the dynamics of offline activities in real time, helping audiences understand the activity content more clearly. Finally, they enable real-time interaction with the audience during the broadcast—such as answering their questions and chatting with them—while also collecting valuable feedback to provide support for optimizing our work in the future.

We used live streaming, like Douyin to enable people from other regions to pay attention to and understand our natural synthetic preservative. The specific process involved three main speakers introducing the original intention of designing the product and what a natural synthetic preservative is. During this period, we also played games with the people on site to enhance the interest of the online audience and attract more people to enter the live broadcast room.

Figure 12 Live streaming

Conclusion and reflection

To expand the social influence of the natural synthetic preservative project, we focused on "social media communication + online live-stream interaction" and enhanced the project's visibility and the coverage of food health popularization through precise content positioning and diversified communication formats.

The team has opened accounts on three major social media platforms: Douyin, Xiaohongshu, and Instagram, and formulated differentiated operation strategies based on the characteristics of each platform. While conducting offline popular science activities, the team also launched online live streams on the Douyin platform, focusing on the dual goals of "food health popularization + project promotion".

Our live streams and social media have broken geographical limitations and attracted a broader audience. However, there is still room for improvement in the project. In terms of social media, we can create more viral content by combining it with current hot topics; for the Douyin live-stream platform, we can pay more attention to audience interaction.

Sticker

we designed stickers to attract children to actively participate in our lectures and game activities.

Figure 13 Sticker

Poster

We designed and distributed posters to present basic information on food safety and knowledge about natural preservatives.

Figure 14 Poster

Brochure

We design hand out flyers to show its main functions, features, strengths, or what makes it special—so folks can quickly see what the product is worth.

Figure 15 Brochure

Figure 16 Brochure

Roll up Banner

We only do roll up banner to display products and other information intuitively through text, pictures, charts and other forms. the roll up banner usually has a large picture size and bright colors, which can stand out from many information and quickly attract the attention of passers-by, thus effectively capturing the attention of the public.

Figure 17 Banner

Through our offline and online activities, our project reached a wide audience.

The speech event for children and parents held at the Beijing Science Center successfully achieved its science popularization goals. During the presentations, the speakers engaged in rich interactions with the audience, allowing them to grasp the knowledge naturally and deeply. At the same time, we linked up with social media to carry out online and offline activities simultaneously, expanding the reach of the event. The prize quiz session successfully ignited the atmosphere and attracted more participants. The event effectively conveyed key information. In our reflections, we noted that our activities were diverse, and the quiz with prizes was particularly inspiring. We realized that, we should pay more attention to interaction and to what children have learned, rather than focusing solely on what we have taught, thereby accumulating valuable experience for related science popularization work ahead.

The online social media further expanded the project’s influence, spreading our knowledge more widely. However, we also reflected that in online activities, we should engage in more interaction with others—for example, by posting questions in the comment section for prize-based quizzes. This also provided us with useful experience for future science popularization events.