STEM FAIR POSTER DAY !STEM FAIR 2018

Lesson Objectives

1. Look at previous examples and analyze

2. Create a checklist of features of good design

3. Read “What makes a good poster?” and compare with your checklist

4. Create a planning sheet and take measurements

5. Work time to make poster

What Makes a Good Poster? Create a checklist. Groups of 3.

What Makes a Good Poster?

1. Can you think of an informative, snappy title?

2. Is it Colorful - Use color for emphasis, variety, and to get and hold attention. But use colors sparingly. Consider color choice. See Slide 11. 3. What is the best way to tell your viewers about the experiment you did? Would a diagram, photograph or model be useful? 4. How are you going to present your results? What kind of graph or Table will you use?

What Makes a Good Poster?

6. Exactly what did you learn? Can you express this clearly? 7. What headings will you use? How big will your headings be? 8. Is it Neat? What font will you use? 9. Is it Accurate ? - spelling and all information should be correct. 10. Have you acknowledged any help you have been given?

1. BLACK on medium Yellow. 6. BLACK on White

2. Medium Dark GREEN on White 7. Medium YELLOW on Black

3. Medium Dark RED on White 8. WHITE on medium Dark Red

4. Medium Dark BLUE on White 9. WHITE on medium Dark Green

5. WHITE on medium Dark Blue 10. WHITE on Black

What Makes a Good Poster?

Have you Considered legibility ( how easy it is to read) when selection colors?

The following combinations are listed in order of readability.

Good planning is KEY !!

And references

Sketch out your design on paper.

You might find it useful to take some measurements.

Writing an abstract

What is an abstract?

● An abstract is an abbreviated version of your science fair project final report.

● For most science fairs it is limited to a maximum of 150 words

● The science fair project abstract appears at the beginning of your display board.

Parts of an abstract

1. Introduction2. State the problem3. Procedure4. Results5. Conclusion

MAX 150 words.

What goes in an abstract?

1. Introduction.● This is where you describe the purpose for doing your science fair project or

invention.

● Why should anyone care about the work you did? You have to tell them why.

● Motivate the reader to finish the abstract and read the entire paper or display board.

2. Problem Statement. Identify the problem you solved or the hypothesis you investigated.

3. Procedures. What was your approach for investigating the problem? Don't go into detail about materials unless they were critical to your success. Do describe the most important variables if you have room.

4. Results. What answer did you obtain? Be specific and use numbers to describe your results. Do not use vague terms like "most" or "some."

5. Conclusion: What did you find out? Next steps?

What goes in an abstract?

Example:

Advertisers are always touting more powerful and longer lasting batteries, but which batteries really do last longer, and is battery life impacted by the speed of the current drain?This project looks at which AA battery maintains its voltage for the longest period of time in low, medium, and high current drain devices. The batteries were tested in a CD player (low drain device), a flashlight (medium drain device), and a camera flash (high drain device) by measuring the battery voltage (dependent variable) at different time intervals (independent variable) for each of the battery types in each of the devices. My hypothesis was that Energizer would last the longest in all of the devices tested. The experimental results supported my hypothesis by showing that the Energizer performs with increasing superiority, the higher the current drain of the device. The experiment also showed that the heavy-duty non-alkaline batteries do not maintain their voltage as long as either alkaline battery at any level of current drain.