In an age where text messaging, e-mail and other forms of high-tech communication rule, one of the best ways of getting through to students may actually be a technique first used by cavemen – scrawling messages with chalk.

“I’ve seen a lot of sidewalk chalk around campus. It definitely catches my eye most of the time. I think it’s because you’re walking on it,” says Crystal Schmitz, a junior at NMSU studying education.

“I think it’s effective. I think it’s because people stare at the ground a lot,” says Christina Garcia, a junior studying animal science. She later confessed to once attending a bake sale she would not have known about had it not been for a sidewalk chalk message.

Encyclopedia Britannica’s Web site says chalk was first used for drawing purposes during the Paleolithic Era, about the same time people started using stone tools.

Today, college students with iPods and laptops (who may or may not be studying the Paleolithic Era) use sidewalk chalk to convey a wide array of messages, from club meeting times, to upcoming sporting events, to which student election candidates to vote for.

“I did it,” says Travis Dulany, Associated Students of NMSU president. “We tried to set up a team of people to go early in the morning or late at night. That’s usually the best time.”

Dulany said his campaign took chalking a step further, by writing a Web site address on the sidewalk where people could visit later for more information. He said NMSU’s abundance of sidewalks paired with a lack of rain makes chalk an ideal form of communication.

“With text messaging or e-mail, you need a list of people, but with chalking, you have access to everyone on campus walking by,” says John Rivers, a graduate student studying secondary education. He thinks at times there may actually be so much chalk that it’s hard for every message to get noticed.

“It is effective,” Schmitz says. “You are not always connected to your computer or looking at your phone, but I’m on campus every day so it catches my eye.”