Poster Show
Throughout the conference, we will highlight posters that describe research, creative activities, and best practices related to sustainability. This is an opportunity for students, faculty, campus staff, and administrators to present and communicate their work from the past academic year to a diverse audience who are working on sustainability efforts at institutions throughout California.
Poster Guidelines
The goal for your poster exhibit is to have an organized and attractively displayed presentation of your research findings or creative work. Posters/exhibits should be self-explanatory, informative, and readable within about five minutes. We recommend that your poster contain the following elements (see below). It is possible that we will accept alternate formats if you have developed your poster for a dual-purpose and the poster format you have chosen still meets our standards for academic rigor:
Title: At the top of your poster/exhibit you should have a title that is both short and very descriptive of your project. As a rule, the title should be easily readable at a distance of about 4-5 feet.
Name and Affiliation: Directly under the title, you should include your name, your faculty mentor's name, name(s) of any co-investigator(s), your department, and your campus name. The name and affiliation section is usually about 20-30% smaller than the title section.
Body of the Poster/Exhibit: We recommend that the information about your work be presented in the following categories:
Abstract: A brief synopsis, one or two paragraphs, of the entire work described in the poster. The abstract should be understandable, allowing the readers to decide whether they would like to continue reading the entire poster. The abstract should contain (a) the purpose of the study/project, (b) a brief statement of what you did, (c) a concise statement of the major findings, and (d) the major conclusions. Do not include details of the methods.
Introduction: The purpose of the introduction is to present the question being explored by your research and to place it in the context of current knowledge about the topic. The introduction should convince the reader of the significance of your study. To do this well in a poster is a challenge. Be brief, but include the important points to be sure the reader sees the relevance of your work.
Methods: In this section you should describe your procedures. Describe your methods in sufficient detail to allow a reader who works in your field to understand how you collected your data. Illustrations are appropriate for complex experimental design, etc. If your presentation is based on a best practice (rather than research), please also consider what information would be required for others to implement a similar best practice on their campuses.
Results: This section is intended to summarize the data. Present all of your results, whether positive or negative. A table or figure may substitute for a written summary as long as each table or figure has a legend that explains the graphic clearly.
Discussion: In this section you should interpret the meaning of your results with respect to the original questions. The discussion should include your conclusions about the answers to the questions that motivated your research that you described in the introduction. If appropriate, mention any alternative explanation for your results and mention possible explanations for unexpected results.
Literature Cited: This section is optional in the poster unless citations are used in the text. Include only those papers cited in the text, and do not cite a paper unless you have read it yourself. Cite all of your references in text and list them in the Literature Cited section, using a format from a major journal within your discipline.
Graphics: Graphics, Tables, Photos, and Other: Illustrations, tables, figures, photographs, and diagrams need to have unique identification numbers and legends. In the text, use the numbers to refer to specific graphics or pictures. In your legends, include a full explanation and, where appropriate, include color keys, scale, etc.
Dimensions: Posters/exhibits should take up a space no larger than 3 ft. x 4 ft. (36inches by 48unches) with a portrait orientation and should be able to be pinned onto a corkboard. Please do not mount on foam board. Please contact CHESC Poster Coordinator (kmaynard@geog.ucsb.edu) if your display is not in this format. From a sustainability perspective we don't want to require you to reprint a poster that has already been printed and can be somewhat flexible in our requirements for pre-printed work.
Examples
We borrowed our criteria heavily from the UCSB URCA Program's Poster show. They also offer sample layouts for posters.
The Governor's Global Climate Summit hosted by UC Davis showcased several very high quality posters. Please consider looking at these examples as well:
Governor's Global Climate Summit Posters
Poster Show Hours
Times where poster presenters will be asked to stand by their poster
- Sunday, June 23rd, 2013, 5:00pm-7:00pm (Opening Reception)
- Monday, June 24th, 2013, 3:30-4:15pm (Poster Show)
- Tuesday, June 25th, 2013, 10:30am-11:30am (Poster Show)
Full hours where posters will be hanging and publically viewed
- Sunday, June 23rd, 2013, 5:00pm-7:00pm (Opening Reception)
- Monday, June 24th, 2013, 7:30am-4:30pm (Exhibit/Poster Show Open)
- Tuesday, June 25th, 2013, 7:30am-2:30pm (Exhibit/Poster Show Open)
Eligibility
- Poster submitters must be students, campus staff, or faculty from a college or university in California. Teams are also eligible. For-profit companies and non-profit organizations are not eligible, but may support a campus in their submittal.
- The work highlighted in the poster must be completed as a part of curriculum, research, or creative projects completed in the context of the college or university listed as the affiliation.
Submittal Process
Submit an abstract following the same instructions as those for oral presentations. At this stage, you are not expected to have completed your poster and you won't be asked to submit your poster until the event.