ENVR 305: Poster format

“Bringing Values to Light” Presentation or Poster Presentation Supplemental Info:

 

Poster Presentation for the PACE Spring Showcase: 

 

What:Institute for Public Affairs and Civic Engagement Spring Showcase

Where:GAC 4^thFloor Assembly Hall, 

When:May 11, set up begins 11:30, poster sessions run 12-1:30 [your whole group need not be there the whole time, but someone(s) should hold down the fort for at least 45 minutes]

 

Top Resource:http://www.salisbury.edu/helpdesk/printing/poster_printing.html

 

Salisbury University has a bevy of resources for printing and creating posters using powerpoint, including already-made templates (note, don’t you dare present things in this format for this project, but use the template to save time making a 36 by 48 inch ppt slide!). Printing posters is free for SU students’ coursework and research. You should make an appointment, as posters can take up to 20 minutes or more to print and if you show up and there’s a line you’ll be waiting for a while. Re-prints due to error cost 2$. 

 

Your poster should include the following elements: 

 

• Your names
• The name of the course: “ENVR 205: Art, Nature, Culture” 
• A title for your project
• The date: 11/05/2018
• Citations for any and all images/quotes/source materials in MLA or APA format. 

 

Your poster should accomplish the following: 

 

• Introduces the audience to the environmental controversy and an overview of the project as a whole. 
• Explains what methods you used for bringing values to light. 
• Explains what values your brought to light from your analysis. That is, what patterns and disjunctures did your group interpret in the data? For example - Do most folks who support the policy action appeal to similar values? Do those who disagree appeal to different values? What values do both sides share? Are there folks on the same side who express differing values from each other? 
• Explains why your findings are important to understanding civic dialogue and controversies in a democracy. In other words, does your study help us understand something about the controversy we didn’t before? Or does your work resonate with a broader political or ethical movement in environmental studies? It’s up to your group to discern why your audience should care about your work.
• It should be creative and engaging to look at. No one will read text-heavy posters. Use high resolution, not subject to copyright, images, infographics, maps, charts, etc. [see flipside for some ideas]

 

The Presentation: 

 

You’ll be set up in the Assembly Hall of the Library (4^thFloor). There will be food, and lots of people milling about, checking out the various posters and projects. 

 

Your job is to engage people in your work; to explain what you’ve done and why it’s important. This is an odd form of presentation, but an essential one for many walks of life. “Tabling” is a key skill for non-profit, government, and private industry work. Poster presentations are a specialized kind of tabling. 

 

In presenting your work, you should be able to “pitch” your project in 30 seconds to a minute, and then invite people to look at your poster. Answer questions and help point out interesting facts or clarify any confusion. 

 

You should be prepared to field questions from a diverse set of folks; there could be community members, faculty, other students, administration, staff—you name it! And of course—me. I’ll be coming around to support and evaluate your presentation. 

Here are some questions to ponder that I will ask you:  

 

• How this experience enhanced your knowledge of a specific reading, theory, or concept from class? 
• How this experience challenged or reinforced your prior understandings?
• How this has made you think about the value of your discipline?
• How this project enhanced your learning in this course? 

 

 

Ideas for communicating via the poster format: 

 

Posters should use text judiciously. While they can’t be vapid and empty, they equally should not be filled with text. That’s boring and confusing to look at; if we wanted to read a paper we’d have just made you all write essays for this project. 

 

When possible, consider using elements of visual rhetoric to communicate ideas and catch a passerby’s eye. These include: 

• Images
• Concept maps
• Graphs, charts, or tables
• Maps
• Pull quotes (this one’s really powerful for this project—especially with annotations) 
• Timelines