START Seminar — Class Summaries for Spring 2018

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Notes from previous START Seminars: Fall 2017, Spring 2017, Fall 2016, Spring 2016, Fall 2015, Spring 2015, Fall 2014, Spring 2014, Fall 2013, Spring 2013 and Fall 2012.

22 — 26 Jan 2018 [Week 1]

Our first meeting this semester will be held on Monday, 22 Jan 2018.

If you own a laptop, then please bring it to class every day, yet we will be meeting in the PLUIMMS Lab (WLLC 216) that has desktops.

All presentations in this class will use the Assertion-Evidence model (see the following two sites about the design of PowerPoint slides):

• A video by Michael Alley regarding PowerPoint presentations.
• A web site by Michael Alley entitled "Rethinking the Design of Presentation Slides: The Assertion-Evidence Structure"

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22 – 26 January 2018 [Week 1]

JSC scholarship applications.

List of assignments (for the first few weeks of class):

Assignment (due 26 Jan 2018): JSC scholarship application 1 [5 points]

Email .docx file.

Assignment (due 2 Feb 2018): JSC scholarship application 2 [10 points]

Email .pdf file. Incorporate comments for the 5 Feb 2018 review.

Assignment (due 5 Feb 2018): JSC scholarship peer review [20 points]

Bring printout to class. Incorporate comments for final submission.

Students cannot address participation in NCAA sports in their essay due to NCAA regulations regarding scholarships. Athletes are by no means disqualified from applying for JSC Scholarships.

Assignment (due 9 Feb 2018 by 5:00 p.m.): JSC scholarship submission [30 points]

Be sure to submit scholarship applications on time.

29 January – 2 February 2018 [Week 2]

Introduction to Adobe Illustrator.

Start saving high-resoultion images for use with the posters. Name the image file such that it can easily be identified with a citation.

Look at the following four links regarding posters (also available on the Writing Guidelines page):

Effective posters
Designing conference posters
Example of a bad scientific poster
Poster and presentation resources

See the following reference:

Colin Purrington, 2016. Designing Conference Posters. Retrieved on 22 January 2017 from http://colinpurrington.com/tips/poster-design.

The Johnson State College logo colors:

Many of the logos required for this work are found at S:\Environment and Health Science\logo

Be sure to use the START logo.

5–9 February 2018 [Week 3]

Review scholarship applications.

12–16 February 2018 [Week 4]

19–23 February 2018 [Week 5]

Work with Illustrator.

Assignment due by 2:30 p.m. on Thursday, 22 February 2018 [30 points].

Print a color 11x17 draft of your poster and slide it under my office door.

26 February–2 March 2018 [Week 6]

Winter Break—be careful.

5–9 March 2018 [Week 7]

Class canceled on Monday, 5 March 2018; see you next week.

12–16 March 2018 [Week 8]

Excel workshop on statistics.

19–23 March 2018 [Week 9]

Class cancelled. Alec, Robert, Adriana and Kayla are attending the annual meeting of the Northeastern Section of the Geological Society of America.

Next week we will work with Excel.

26–30 March 2018 [Week 10]

We used some data collected from the RACC project (found on the U: dirve) and asked the following question: In an agricultural environment, does the amount of total suspended solids in a stream account for the variation in total phosophorous in that stream? We used Excel and produced a scatter plot with a regression line and associated P-value (the P-value was calclulated with the use of range names and the data analysis tab).

Assignment due Monday, 2 April 2018: Regression plot with p-value and R² value [30 points].

Use the data from workshopData.xls and select only the forested data, 170 data points, to develop one PowerPoint slide with the following characteristics:

1. A scatter plot with a regression line for forested data.
2. The figure should be clear and informative (see 'Characteristics of desirable graphs', and the following slide, on the handout distributed in class on Week 8).
3. Include the P-value and R² value on the figure.
4. Include a clear assertion statement.
5. Animate the regression line to automatically wipe to the right after a three-second delay.
6. Attach the PowerPoint to a properly written email and send it to me.

2–6 April 2018 [Week 11]

More data analysis with Excel to build bar charts with error bars using standard error of the mean.

Assignment due Monday, 16 April 2018: Bar chart with standard error of the mean [30 points].

Use the data from co2fstart.xlsx to develop one PowerPoint slide with the following characteristics:

1. Create a bar graph with error bars representing standard error of the mean for each bar.
2. Label each column to indicate the number of data points that were used to calculate the average (i.e. height of the bar).
3. Label the axes appropriately (no abbreviations, use proper units, and include a font size that is reasonable).
4. The figure should be clear and informative (see 'Characteristics of desirable graphs', and the following slide, on the handout distributed in class on Week 8).
5. Include a clear assertion statement.
6. Attach the PowerPoint to a properly written email and send it to me.

9–13 April 2018 [Week 12]

Spring Break—stay safe.

16–20 April 2018 [Week 13]

More data analysis with Excel to work with histograms. There will be another 30-point assignment...

Do this: create a new profile with SPIN.

23–27 April 2018 [Week 14]

30 April–4 May 2018 [Week 15]

7–11 May 2018 [Week 16]

Final Exam: Monday, 14 May 2018 at 4:00 p.m.

Upcoming Conferences

Past Conferences for the 2017/2018 Academic Year

NYGeoCon 2017
Conference Center at Lake Placid, NY
17–19 October 2017
https://www.nysgis.net/nygeocon2017/
(Attended: Les, Robert and Alec)

129^th Annual Meeting of the Geological Society of America
Seattle, WA
22–25 Oct 2017
http://community.geosociety.org/gsa2017/home
(Expected to attend: none)

109^th Annual Meeting of the New England Intercollegiate Geological Conference
Bates College, Lewiston, ME
28 Sep–1 Oct 2017
http://w3.salemstate.edu/~lhanson/NEIGC/Conference.html
(Expected to attend: none)

Past Conferences for the 2016/2017 Academic Year

Geological Society of America
128^th Annual Meeting
Denver, Colorado
25 - 28 September 2016
http://www.geosociety.org/meetings/2016/
(Expected to attend: no one)

New England Intercollegiate Geological Conference
106^th Annual Meeting
Brunswick-Waldoboro area of the Maine coast
14–16 October 2016
http://w3.salemstate.edu/~lhanson/NEIGC/Conference.html
(Expected to attend: no one)

Norris Cotton Cancer Center's 2^nd Annual Student Oncology Conference
Cancer Center at Dartmouth-Hitchcock
1 Medical Center Drive
Lebanon, NH 03756
23 October 2016
Paula.Therrien@dartmouth.edu
(Attended: Brynn and Kasie)

World Congress on Undergraduate Research
First Annual Meeting
Qatar University
Doha, Qatar
13–15 November 2016
http://www.cur.org/world_congress/
(Attended: Liz, Heather, Shayna and Shavonna)

1^st Vermont State Colleges Symposium at the State House
Montpelier, VT
31 January 2018
(Robert, Alec, Les and a bunch of other JSC students)

The New England Association of Environmental Biologists
41^st Annual Meeting
Hilton Hartford Hotel
Hartford, CT
14–16 March 2017
http://www.neaeb.org/#about-us
(Expected to attend: Heather)

Research on Adaptation to Climate Change Student Research Symposium
9^th Annual Meeting
Grand Maple Ballroom at the University of Vermont
Burlington, Vermont
28 March 2017
http://epscor.w3.uvm.edu/2/node/1227
(Expected to attend: Les, Amanda, and ?)

52^nd Annual Meeting of the Geological Society of America Northeastern Section
Sheraton Hotel and Conference Center
Burlington, VT
18–20 March 2018
http://geosociety.org/GSA/Events/Section_Meetings/GSA/Sections/ne/2018mtg/home.aspx
(Attended: Les, Robert, Alec, Adriana, and Kayla)

National Conference on Undergraduate Research 2018
University of Central Oklahama
Edmund, OK
4 –7 April 2018 
https://www.cur.org/conferences_and_events/student_events/ncur_2018/
(Attended: Robert)