 classroom activity outlining the project overview  in this activity students get together all of the information they need to begin authoring a poster notes reports from other activities data graphs etc then students think through the storyline of their project and outline the elements that will be on the poster getting ready begin with the list of information that should be included in a poster print out or make available electronically the poster questionnaire  see printable pdf below   about posters information that should be included on a poster will incorporate all previous units the following poster guide is available for students as a printable pdf below  parts of a poster  title and authors what are you going to call your project have a catchy title that s not too cute also list all of the people who worked on the project and their affiliation school introduction this section tells the reader why you studied what you did who cares why is mercury important what important research question were you asking what was the hypothesis think back and use notes from units 1 and 2 materials and methods this section tells readers briefly how you did the project use photos and maps if you can if you used any novel methods describe those in more detail otherwise keep it very brief just a few bullet points refer to units 3 and 4 results the results are just the facts start with your graph and your basic statistics display those and say what they are in words refer to unit 5 activity a discussion for each result say what it means with respect to the hypothesis or research question was the hypothesis supported this is the last part of unit 5 activity b conclusions here is where students can describe what went right or wrong with the study were they confident that their evidence data supported or did not support the hypothesis what would they do differently next time what should next year s class investigate literature cited if any reports web sites journal articles or books were used list them here acknowledgments students should thank any project funders scientists or experts who helped with the project labs that analyzed samples anyone who helped in some way or made the study possible  activity procedure  explain to students what a poster is show an example see the poster gallery on the primary acadia learning website for student presentation examples  encourage students to think of their project as a story and pretend they are telling the story of their project to someone who has no idea what they ve been doing tell them the goal is to explain what they ve done to other people who didn t follow along and have no clue what the project was about good advice is to pretend they are explaining the project to their mother how would they tell her what they did what are important pieces of information and what are extraneous details working in small groups or as a class as appropriate have students fill in the questionnaire this will serve as the outline of their poster encourage students to refer to notes and results from other activities  resources more tips can be found at advice on designing scientific posters  http wwwswarthmoreedu natsci cpurrin1 posteradvicehtm  creating effective poster presentations  http wwwncsuedu project posters newsite indexhtml handouts these documents can be viewed by clicking the links below individual pdfs of each document can be downloaded from the attachments at the bottom of this web page parts of a poster poster questionnaire attachment size parts of a posterpdf 598 kb poster questionnairepdf 11416 kb  mercury in watersheds classroom activity presentation  