<h2>
	<a name="TOC-OVERVIEW"></a>OVERVIEW</h2>
<p>
	&nbsp;</p>
<p>
	In this activity students get together all of the information they need to begin authoring a poster &ndash; notes, reports from other activities, data, graphs, etc. Then students think through the &lsquo;storyline&rsquo; of their project and outline the elements that will be on the poster.</p>
<h2>
	<a name="TOC-GETTING-READY"></a>GETTING READY</h2>
<p>
	Begin with the list of information that should be included in a poster. Print out or make available electronically the <i>Poster Questionnaire</i> (See <a href="#tips">printable pdf below</a>).</p>
<p>
	&nbsp;</p>
<h4>
	<a name="TOC-About-Posters"></a>About Posters</h4>
<p>
	Information that should be included on a poster will incorporate all previous units. The following poster guide is available for students as a <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/mercuryourwatershedfriends/watershed-experiences/unit-6/a-outling-the-project#tips">printable pdf below</a>.</p>
<br />
<br style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);" />
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
	<u style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><b>Parts of a Poster: </b></u></div>
<ul style="margin-left: 40px;">
	<li>
		Title and Authors
		<ul>
			<li>
				What are you going to call your project? Have a catchy title that&rsquo;s not too cute. Also, list all of the people who worked on the project, and their affiliation (school).</li>
		</ul>
	</li>
	<li>
		Introduction
		<ul>
			<li>
				This section tells the reader why you studied what you did &ndash; 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.</li>
		</ul>
	</li>
	<li>
		Materials and Methods
		<ul>
			<li>
				This section tells readers &ndash; briefly &ndash; 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 &ndash; just a few bullet points. Refer to Units 3 and 4.</li>
		</ul>
	</li>
	<li>
		Results
		<ul>
			<li>
				The results are &lsquo;Just the facts&rsquo;. Start with your graph and your basic statistics. Display those, and say what they are in words. Refer to Unit 5, Activity A.</li>
		</ul>
	</li>
	<li>
		Discussion
		<ul>
			<li>
				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.</li>
		</ul>
	</li>
	<li>
		Conclusions
		<ul>
			<li>
				Here is where students can describe what went right &ndash; or wrong &ndash; 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&rsquo;s class investigate?</li>
		</ul>
	</li>
	<li>
		Literature Cited
		<ul>
			<li>
				If any reports, web sites, journal articles, or books were used, list them here.</li>
		</ul>
	</li>
	<li>
		Acknowledgments
		<ul>
			<li>
				Students should thank any project funders, scientists or experts who helped with the project, labs that analyzed samples &ndash; anyone who helped in some way or made the study possible.</li>
		</ul>
	</li>
</ul>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
	&nbsp;</div>
<div>
	<h2>
		<a name="TOC-ACTIVITY-PROCEDURE"></a>ACTIVITY PROCEDURE</h2>
	<p>
		&nbsp;</p>
	<p>
		Explain to students what a poster is. Show an example. See the <a href="http://parkcitizenscience.org/beta/photogallery.php?PHPSESSID=75cf6852c2a1978bbf3e409be46a7d5c" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Poster Gallery</a> on the primary Acadia Learning website for student presentation examples.&nbsp;</p>
	<div style="display: block; text-align: left;">
		<a href="http://parkcitizenscience.org/beta/photogallery.php?PHPSESSID=75cf6852c2a1978bbf3e409be46a7d5c" imageanchor="1" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://sites.google.com/site/mercuryourwatershedfriends/_/rsrc/1290708612736/watershed-experiences/unit-6/a-outling-the-project/poster.jpg" /></a></div>
	<br />
	<p>
		Encourage students to think of their project as a story &ndash; and pretend they are telling the story of their project to someone who has no idea what they&rsquo;ve been doing. Tell them the goal is to explain what they&rsquo;ve done to other people who didn&rsquo;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?</p>
	<p>
		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.</p>
	<p>
		&nbsp;</p>
	<a name="tips"></a>
	<h2>
		<a name="TOC-RESOURCES"></a>RESOURCES</h2>
	<p>
		More tips can be found at:</p>
	<ul>
		<li>
			&ldquo;Advice on designing scientific posters&rdquo; - <a href="http://www.swarthmore.edu/NatSci/cpurrin1/posteradvice.htm" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://www.swarthmore.edu/NatSci/cpurrin1/posteradvice.htm</a></li>
		<li>
			&ldquo;Creating effective poster presentations&rdquo; - <a href="http://www.ncsu.edu/project/posters/NewSite/index.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://www.ncsu.edu/project/posters/NewSite/index.html</a></li>
	</ul>
	<h2>
		<a name="TOC-HANDOUTS"></a>HANDOUTS</h2>
	<p>
		These documents can be viewed by clicking the links below.&nbsp; Individual PDFs of each document can be downloaded from the &quot;attachments&quot; at the bottom of this web page.</p>
	<ul>
		<li>
			<a href="https://sites.google.com/site/mercuryourwatershedfriends/watershed-experiences/unit-6/a-outling-the-project/PartsofaPoster.pdf?attredirects=0" target="_blank">Parts of a Poster</a></li>
		<li>
			<a href="https://sites.google.com/site/mercuryourwatershedfriends/watershed-experiences/unit-6/a-outling-the-project/PosterQuestionnaire.pdf?attredirects=0" target="_blank">Poster Questionnaire</a></li>
	</ul>
</div>
