START Seminar – Class Summaries for Fall 2016

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Click on a week for the lecture summaries:

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

22 - 26 August 2016 [Week 1]

The first meeting of this semester will be held on Monday, 22 August 2016.

This semester, as in previous semesters, we will continue to develop our skills with Excel (statistics), PowerPoint (topic: demographic transition model), writing and presenting.

The PowerPoint slides 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"

The focus of our PowerPoint presentations this semester will be based on the demographic transition model. Additional resources that may be of use include the following:

29 August - 2 September 2016 [Week 2]

Steven Lamonde suggests that the STARTers read a paper in the American Scientist entitled: The Evolution of the 21st-Century Scientist.

Assignment: PowerPoint presentation on the Demographic Transition Model (DTM)

Choose one aspect of the DTM and teach us something.
Use the Assertion-Evidence structure with data from many sources.
Use subtle, appropriate, and informative animations.
Cite everything.
Be sure to have the following slides: title, importance, several assertion-evidence slides, take home message, and references.

Due dates for the DTM assignment:

Please attach the PowerPoint to a properly written email and send it to me by 19 September 2016.
Class presentations begin on 17 October 2016.

I would be more than happy to work individually with you at any time.

25 - 9 September 2016 [Week 3]

Topic: hypothesis development; click here for some slides related to the presentation.

Clearly, slides that use a lot of words makes a presentation difficult to follow – please use the assertion-evidence style for PowerPoint presentations. Yet, interestingly, many of us were unable to define words that we regularly (for example: hypothesis, theory, law, science, probability and significance level). In class we used a lot of words to define a few concepts.

Be careful when formatting cells in Excel; see Gene Name Errors are Widespread in The Scientific Literature.

12 - 16 September 2016 [Week 4]

Topic: Introduction to the Data Analysis tool, range names, scatter plots, R², descriptive statistics, and freeze panes using Excel 2016.

Quiz: hypothesis, null hypothesis, and p-values.

19 - 23 September 2016 [Week 5]

Dr. Hans Haverkamp spoke about his research question, hypotheses, null hypotheses, and alternative hypothesis.

Excel topics: 1) p-values and 2) bar charts using standard error of the mean.

26 - 29 September 2016 [Week 6]

Dr. Robert Genter spoke about his research questions, hypotheses, and principal component analysis.

Excel topic: bar charts.

PowerPoint: reviewed example pages from each student.

3 - 7 October 2016 [Week 7]

Fall Break – please be careful.

10 -14 October 2016 [Week 8]

Excel topics: histograms and box plots.

17 - 24 October 2016 [Week 9]

PowerPoint Presentations begin.

24 - 28 October 2016 [Week 10]

PowerPoint Presentations continue.

31 October - 4 November 2016 [Week 11]

PowerPoint discussions.

Assignment: Submit a resume

Assignment (due 7 November 2016): Resume

Create a resume as discussed in class demonstrate your understanding of the intricacies of Word.
Print the document, staple it, and submit it at the start of class.
Send the (Word) document attached to a well-written email before class begins.

7 - 11 November 2016 [Week 12]

Excel topic: Anova

Assignment (due 28 November 2016): PowerPoint with Excel Figures

Create a PowerPoint with an appropriate cover page and the following graphs (created using Excel this semester):

1. Scatter plot with R² and p-values for TSS_a : TP_a
2. Bar chart with standard error of the mean for TSS_a (20-31 Oct 2012)
3. Histogram for TSS_a
4. Box and whisker plots for TSS_a and TSS_f

Use the assertion-evidence model for each graph.
Appropriately animate one aspect of each graph.
Label the axes properly (use subscripts, superscripts, symbols, and italics as appropriate).
References are not required.
Follow the guidelines for simplicity and elegance.

7 - 11 November 2016 [Week 13]

Seminar cancelled.

21 - 25 November 2016 [Week 14]

Thanksgiving Break.

28 November - 2 December 2016 [Week 15]

General comments regarding resumes:

Staple carefully.
Define scholarships (including JSC) and the amounts.
Do not abbreviate words and do not use acronyms.
Put name and page number in the footer of page and above (date completed in last page footer).
Cut out extraneous words.
Quantify everything.
Use the white space effectively (fill the pages equally).
Use past tense for work completed.

Assignment (due 5 December 2016): Resume

Update your resumes.
Submit a printed version of the updated resume and include the earlier resume (with my comments) that was returned today.

5 - 9 December 2016 [Week 16]

Business Cards

Business cards (or possibly, conversation starter cards).

Go to Vistaprint and download the Illustrator template for buisiness cards.

Be sure to 'Convert Fonts to Outlines' before uploading the final version.

Consider a recent article by the head of the EPA, or drought, or water challenges, the Electoral College, politicized science (Trump dumps NASA climate research), or Burlington is America's first all-renewable city, or something else?

PowerPoint Comments

General comments regarding graphs presented by PowerPoint:

Avoid abbreviations.
Use symbols (°) and Greek letters (µ).
Try the 'Wheel' (with one spoke) animation option to draw a circle or box around an object.
Be cognizant of the color, transparency, shadow, speed, and delay when animating.
Most of the box plot animations were strange.

Using Dashes

The Chicago Manual of Style on dashes: hyphen (-), en dash (–), and em dash (—).

hyphen: words that work together as a modifier (for example: two-thirds)
en dash: things related to each other by distance (for example: January–June, or Northern Vermont University–Johnson)
em dash: allows additional thoughts to be inserted into a sentence—similar to a parenthetical phrase.

Resume Comments

List all items in each section in reverse chronological order.
Use the en dash, or the word 'to' for all date ranges.
Use control-enter to break a bulleted-line yet retain the proper format.
Note use of Facebook or Twitter if you have significant experience.
Note LinkedIn account—or join if you do not yet have an account.

Final Exam: Monday, 12 December 2016 at 4:00 p.m.

Upcoming Conferences

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 ?)

North American Symposium on Landslides
3^rd Annual Meeting
Roanoke, VA
4-8 June 2017
http://www.aegweb.org/mpage/nasl17m
(Expected to attend: Les and ?)

Past Conferences for the 2016/2017 Academic Year

2016 Annual Water Quality Conference
5^th Annual Meeting
VT Technical College
Randolph, VT
8 June 2016
http://www.vectogether.org/vec-events/spring-conference/
(Expected to attend: no one)

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)

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