 classroom activity authoring a poster overview  the goal of this activity is for students to get all of the pieces together and put together their posters making the posters will mostly be about summarizing and communicating that information and thinking a bit more about what it means the poster will include all the stages of the research project from gathering the background information to designing the project to data analysis and drawing conclusions from the work getting ready all the project materials and the poster outline  activity a  should be at hand download the poster template  access to a whiteboard sticky notes and paper scissors and tape is useful during the draft stage activity procedure  begin by showing the students the poster template  note that it is 3 feet by 4 feet in size ultimately the information will need to be pasted into the template but it s best to start with a mockup that can be changed and elements moved draw a large rectangle on the white board this represents the poster space have students write the title of each poster section on a sticky note eg introduction methods stick these subtitles on the white board inside the poster working from the poster outline s the students have developed have them cut out or rewrite the various sections and stick them on the board where they belong also stick on photocopies of key graphs or sketches of maps and photos the goal here is to mock up what will go on the poster and approximately where work with the group to discuss the text order of items and general layout edit the text and move elements around until there is agreement about the material on the poster remember that this is just a draft so the appearance of items doesn t matter much now have students open the poster template and begin typing in the text they ve developed on the mockup paste in figures photos and graphs where they belong save this draft frequently once all the material is on the poster have students work a bit with the layout it s best to do this last even though it s tempting to resize things as they type just get all the material down then move and resize things afterwards now is the time after saving again to experiment with background colors change the fonts and make an eyecatching design however encourage students not to go overboard the most important thing is to have a poster that people can read and understand  so no busy backgrounds and hardtoread fonts and colors that detract from the presentation and take a very long time to print once finished the poster can go through a round of peerreview this means sending the poster to another class or to the cooperating scientist to get constructive criticism because students were so involved with the project they might think some details or information are obvious when to someone outside the project it needs to be spelled out peer review is an important part of scientific communication and will help improve the overall quality of the poster make any final edits following the peer review and save the poster again contact the partnering scientist about printing the poster grammar note data is a plural noun  a very common mistake is to use the word data as a singular noun the singular of data is datum the word data should be used as follows the data show that the data support the hypothesis the data were analyzed when writing about data try substituting a regular plural noun to see if it sounds right for example the dogs was analyzed no it s dogs were  or data were   handouts these documents can be viewed by clicking the links below individual powerpoint files of each document can be downloaded from the attachments at the bottom of this web page poster template  includes notes and guiding descriptions  blank poster template  all content removed attachment size postertemplateppt 7815 kb postertemplateblankppt 65 kb  mercury in watersheds classroom activity presentation  