Final Project

During the final three weeks, students will work on a term project based on actual data, either (preferably) from their own research or a data set provided by the professor. Students must send an email describing their chosen project to the professor no later than Friday Feb 7^th. The results of this project will be presented as a conference-style poster including an abstract, a short introduction to the subject, a description of the data and methods used and a brief discussion of the implications of the findings for our understanding of the topic. Each poster will be accompanied by a more in-depth, two page minimum (12 pt font, 1” margins, not including figures and tables) write-up describing the methods used. Anonymous draft poster pdfs and methods papers will be due on Tues March 10^th by 5 pm. The anonymous posters will each be assigned a number and posted on this page for review. Each student will be responsible for providing comments (minimum of one strength, one weakness, and a suggestion for addressing that weakness) on four posters assigned in the table below by 5 pm on Thurs March 12th, as well as their votes on the top two posters from the full set. These comments will then be returned to the authors of the posters, who must submit final revised versions of the posters and methods papers by Monday March 16^th. The top two posters by popular acclaim will each receive a prize.

For some new thinking on what makes a good poster, I strongly recommend watching Mike Morrison's Youtube video (linked below); if you want the Cliff notes version you can also read this NPR article on Morrison's research (see below). For a more traditional (but still good!) approach to poster-making, you can also take a look at several example posters, attached below, from graduate students in Planetary Science and Astronomy.

Regardless of what format you choose to utilize, you should keep the following advice in mind. First, try to have something eye-catching as a center piece that either presents or is closely related to the primary scientific results. This could be an image, a plot, or a graph. Second, go easy on the text. All you want your reader to know should be mostly contained within figures or images. Text should be brief and to the point. Finally, keep it simple. Be wary of trying to stuff too much onto one poster. Remember that most people will spend a minute or less looking at your poster, make sure they can still walk away with the main point.