During the last 3 classes of this term we will have a virtual poster session. The class will be divided into 3 groups composed of the breakout groups indicated below. During this mini-conference you will work with a partner to deliver and discuss some science in an informal way in a ~15 minute block of time to members of the group to which you are assigned. Please view this exercise as guiding a short discussion and NOT a formal lecture. In detail, this is not so different as guiding your colleagues through your mind maps in class.
Presentations in the 3 groups will be concurrent. On each day, there will be 3 and sometimes 4 presentations in each of the 3 groups.
What’s in your virtual poster and what is the format for a virtual poster?
This project is an opportunity to be creative in both content and in the style of delivery. Virtual posters can be like standard posters you see on walls (examples are below via a link to some from 2015). However, they can also be interactive. There are many ways to do this. From a skeleton of information, you can, for example, build a mind map in real time of the key points and how they are related to your goal or plan, use video or whatever else you choose. As I indicate below, your audience will have read your poster before your presentation so you can feel free to be socratic to engage in discussion. Use your audience to help work through your project if you wish-- do not feel compelled to simply deliver information as a form of lecture. This format is both more time-consuming to prepare and less interesting to your audience.
Requirements of Presenters
The subject of your poster can be drawn from any area of Earth and planetary science. The structure of your project must have these elements:
- The title of your poster (like your talk) must be in the form of a question.
- Your question must be motivated by a specific and explicit temporal or spatial pattern of behaviour you observe in a specific data set, with consideration of uncertainties in the data.
- This data set can be published or it can be a data that you find online or somewhere else-- your own measurements are fine, for example.
- In Figure 1 of your poster you must present the data set that motivates your question. You must identify explicitly on this figure what are the key elements of your chosen pattern and why they are interesting. You can include additional figures showing other observations that are relevant to defining your question (this is the “what” part of this project).
- You must present a model that is used to build understanding of the pattern in the data in which you are interested. This model can be one that is published or one of your own design.
- You must discuss what features of your data set are explained by the model and what are the gaps in the knowledge.
- Your research should involve at least 4 or 5 references.
- I want to repeat an essential point: This is not meant to be a lecture. Each presentation will involve guiding the audience through the poster with questioning and discussion throughout the time. Call people out. Invite them to interrupt you. The goal of this exercise is to articulate scientific material precisely, informally and using plain language.
Examples of old-school paper posters from 2018
Requirements of Audience
Presenters on any given day have a lot of work to do. If you are not presenting, however, you still have some work to do. Each audience member must prepare a mind map or concept map for the posters being presented on a given day. The mind or concept map can vary in focus. It could be aimed at establishing the links between the question asked, the data analyzed and the model used to explain or understand the data. Does the story hang together? Are there logical holes or other issues with the poster? Alternatively, build a mind map that drills into one feature of a poster. You choose.
Partnerships for the posters AND Start order for days 1-3 in each of the 3 sessions A-C
Poster Deliverables
Deliverable A: 1 Page proposal. Be sure to
- Include your names
- State your question (i.e. title).
- Indicate from what data set your question is drawn. Give a succinct justification for why the data set and the pattern in the data set you find intriguing is interesting or controversial.
- Find and check at least 2 references for each group member. You do NOT have to read them yet, but you should choose carefully so they are not too long or complicated.
- DUE INTO CANVAS BY 8 AM (PACIFIC), FRIDAY, NOV. 13. No late proposals will be accepted.
Deliverable B: A ONE PAGE PDF poster that is less than 5 MB in size.
- DUE INTO CANVAS WENESDAY, NOV. 25 BY 11:59 (PACIFIC)
Deliverable C: On days 1-3, audience members (NOT PRESENTERS) must come to their breakout rooms with a mind map or concept map related to each of the 2 or 3 presentations to be given. These mind/concept maps should indicate links between the question asked and the data set being investigated. They should also convey the extent to which the model proposed or discussed explains the feature in the data that is driving the question: Identify what is understood and what is missed, within uncertainties. If the argument is clear, make this feature plain. If there are logical problems, holes or challenges, your map should show these explicitly.
These efforts will be shared with the presenters and with the instructor. In addition to enabling discussion, these mind and concept maps serve as a form of feedback to the presenters. They will know quickly if they were successful at conveying the point.
Some other information:
A Rubric
What is an excellent project-- Some ingredients?
- A direct and well-motivated question that falls seamlessly out of a temporal or spatial pattern in the data set motivating your question.
- A clear discussion of one or more data sets related to your question.
- An emphasis on how data and one or more models are related within uncertainties (if this is possible-- make it clear if this step is not possible).
- A discussion of assumptions and/or limitations that constrain the thinking.
- A well-considered conclusion: To what extent is your question answered? What is left out? What are some directions for future work?
Some Practical Guidelines
Success through simplicity or “keep it simple and stupid”: Mostly aimed at old-school posters but the ideas carry forward here even if your whole poster is a mind map
- Avoid excessive text: Use bullets and large, legible font. See example below.
- Order your panels (i.e., main components of your story) in a logical fashion—make it easy to read and understand your work in <5 minutes. Consider numbering your sections to help see the flow.
- Build introductory remarks around your figure 1 and the question that is the title for your poster. Give your goals and plan in plain language.
- Make excellent figures that convey key ideas simply and cleanly.
- Make sure you can speak to these figures. Complicated figures that are highly artistic are not always the best way to go.
- Include a summary of the goals and the main points the audience should take away.
- Include a conclusion—Use bullets and make sure your return to your introductory goals.
Content
- STICK TO THE QUESTION THAT YOU IDENTIFY. Be disciplined about this. Vigilant.
- Include a critical discussion of one or more relevant data sets. The data seta could be in the form of one or more x-y plots, graphs, contour plots, maps etc.
- Incorporate the models that authors of your articles use to explain, understand, predict, AND don’t forget to relate models / data / strengths / limitations in your discussion.
- Feel free to develop your own model. Be clear about the predictions your model makes and discuss the extent to which it explains the data in which you are interested.
- Include discussion of what features in the data you understand and do not understand. Knowing where understanding stops and confusion starts is a key step in the scientific process.
Prose vs. Bullets: Use bullets! Imagine you have 30s to draw someone in to your work-- during a poster session you probably have less time to do this in reality!
Example of Prose
“Most of the information about Europa was gathered through the Galileo mission. During the flyby Galileo flew about 351 km above the icy moon and it detected directional changes in Europa's magetic field. In combination with other fluctuations in magnetic field, these changes suggested that Europa has a layer of electrically conducting material, such as salty, liquid ocean. The measurements made during the Callisto flyby also revealed a similar result in magnetic field suggesting a presence of a liquid layer. It is commonly agreed among scientists that a solid body of ice is a very poor electrical conductor, whereas melted ice containing salt, like the sea water found on Earth, is a fairly good conductor. As a result it was proposed that the liquid could be salt water melted from the solid ice shell which allows it to easily carry electrical currents and produce the observed changing magnetic field. Such finding supports the prediction of the existence of the interior subsurface liquid.”
An Example of Saying the Same thing with Bullets:
observation: Magnetic, imaging, and spectroscopic measurements were made by the Galileo as it flew by Europa and Callisto.
inferences: Fluctuations and changes in direction of magnetic fields were interpreted as evidence for an interior electrically conducting layer, possibly a salty liquid ocean.
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