Title and Authors	What are you going to call your project? Have a catchy title that’s not too cute. Also, list all of the people who worked on the project, and their affiliation (school).
Introduction	This section tells the reader why you studied what you did – Who cares? Why is nitrogen important? What important research question were you asking? What was the hypothesis (Use the If, Then… Because structure for the hypothesis)? Think back and use notes from Units 1 and 2.
Materials and Methods	This section tells readers – briefly – 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 – just a few bullet points. Refer to Units 3 and 4.
Results	The results are ‘Just the facts’. Start with your graph and your basic statistics. Display those, and say what they are in words. Refer to Unit 5, Classroom Activity 3: Data Presentation.
Discussion	For each result, say what it means with respect to the hypothesis or research question- make the argument about HOW the results support or do not support your claim. This is the last part of Unit 5, Classroom Activity 4: Data Interpretation.
Conclusions	Here is where students can describe what went right – or wrong – 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’s class investigate? What new questions do they have?
Literature Cited	If any reports, web sites, journal articles, or books were used, list them here.
Acknowledgments	Students should thank any project funders, scientists or experts who helped with the project, labs that analyzed samples, anyone who helped in some way or made the study possible.

 

Goals

Students understand:

• That they must communicate their research
• Outlining creates a framework to streamline a process

Outcomes

• Students will create an outline to tell their research story in linear fashion

Where does this lesson happen in the Project?

This lesson is the first in Unit 6: Discussing and Presenting your Research Results

Getting Ready

Begin with the list of information that should be included in a poster.

Print out or make available electronically the Poster Questionnaire.

Materials

• Poster Questionnaire
• Parts of a Poster
• Access to the poster gallery on participatoryscience.org website

 Handouts (see also Lesson Resources)

    Poster Questionnaire
    Parts of a Poster

Student Prerequisites

Students need to understand that they will be telling their research story, including the interpretation of their results.

Time Needed

One class period.

Doing the Activity

Explain to students what a poster is. Show an example. See the Poster Gallery for student presentation examples.

Encourage students to think of their project as a research story – and envision they are telling the story of their project to someone who has no idea what they’ve been doing. Tell them the goal is to explain what they’ve done to other people who didn’t follow along and have no clue what the project was about. Good advice is to imagine they are explaining the project to a family member. How would they tell her what they did? What are important pieces of information, and what are extraneous details?

Working in research 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.

Assessment

Formative

Circulate; ensure that the parts of the poster are all getting worked on.

Summary

Collect outlines, ensure that the story being told is linear and contains all of the parts (see above)

Lesson Resources

    Parts of a Poster
    Poster Questionnaire
    More tips can be found at (these are not necessarily appropriate for students, Dr. Purrington’s is full of references to the more social aspects of a poster session):

“Advice on designing scientific posters” -

“Creating effective poster presentations” -