Poster Presentations: Turning a Lab of the Week into a Culminating Experience

摘要

An assignment incorporating posters into a second-year analytical chemistry lab is described. Students work in groups and are assigned one of the application-themed weekly laboratories as a topic. Course data acquired for these weekly laboratories are compiled into spreadsheets that the poster group then analyzes to present in an on-campus poster session. Visual design with the use of minimal text is emphasized, and statistical analysis and spreadsheet usage are incorporated. This assignment provides the majority of students in the course with their first poster experience. By making the students revisit a previous lab and reconsider the topic using course-wide data, a simple lab of the week becomes an in-depth project culminating in a poster presentation. Student satisfaction with this assignment has been high both in terms of group work experience and the resulting poster.