Deadline to apply for the Project Fair: Friday, February 26th, 2010
(For poster session only)

Please sign in and use the form at the bottom of this page to apply.

The Project Fair last year was a huge success, with hundreds of students and faculty attending, and you are invited to be a part of it this year by preparing an exhibit that will showcase your work. Your exhibit may relate to the Senses, to an interdisciplinary topic of any kind, or reflect one of your interests and passions. In other words, exceptional exhibits of any kind will be welcomed. Your exhibit may be in any format–poster, audio-visual, other. The Project Fair will take place in Conrods and we will accept a large number of these presentations–around thirty or more. 

Whether you are preparing a SPACE talk or Project Fair presentation, please keep in mind that all presentations should be accessible and engaging to a general student audience. In other words, a presentation that approaches the Senses from the point of view of the Arts should be accessible and engaging to a student in the Sciences, and vice versa. You should think as much about communication–how best to reach your audience–as you do about content.

There are two categories of submissions for the Project Fair (see details below):

1. Poster Session: These proposals have an interdisciplinary flavour and should relate to the theme of "Exploring Knowledge Through the Senses".

2. Projects: Submissions in this category are exhibited in any format and may involve projects -- e.g. original artwork, Comprehensive Assessments, etc. -- already completed for some other purpose or created specifically for the conference.     

Poster Session Criteria:

The Poster session is the centerpiece of the Project Fair. These proposals could be identical to the SPACE Talks except that the means of conveying the information will differ (i.e. with images on poster boards and through informal exchanges with your audience, etc. vs. with powerpoint and lecture). Posters can adopt a variety of layouts depending on the information being conveyed. Thus the required dimensions for presenting your poster will be variable. Strive for creativity and clarity with your design layout and presentation. The standard sizes for proposals are:

1. minimum dimension is 11 X 17''  (eg. standard medium-sized print poster)
2. maximum dimension is 36 X 56''  (eg. standard large science fair display board)

Below are two examples of how to frame a successful proposal for the conference:

Possible title:        "Mountains of Data"

Proposal:              "I’m focused on visual storytelling. How can I make complex or technical topics vivid and clear? How can I show the attributes and relationships among unfamiliar things so that a novice can grasp the patterns of cause and effect? How can I integrate text and images so they unfold a story that a non-expert finds easy to understand and remember? For example, a population distribution map shows a fundamental truth—people don’t spread out evenly; we tend to bunch up in cities. Until you understand this, you can’t really grasp the significance of other demographic data. You could stare all day at spreadsheets filled with population numbers and still not see the big picture. Visualizing population as mountains requires no explanation or key. This poster shows the power of visual storytelling for rendering data comprehensible and is a valuable tool in many disciplines.

The image below is an example of an 11 X 17''poster. It is a rendering of the questions posed in the above proposal example.

The next example shows an outline for a typical 36 X 56'' poster presentation common to science fairs and conferences. Do you already have a CA project or other ideas you want to investigate and share on April 7th? Mount it for the SPACE conference with a layout that best communicates your idea.

More ideas for students interested in presenting in the poster session:

Possible title:        "Evidence of things unseen"
Examples where believing is not in the seeing. E.g., touch as an electromagnetic interaction.

Possible title:        "Optical illusions"
How eyes and brains conspire to deceive us.

Possible title:        "Climbing Jacob’s Ladder:from the microscopic to the macroscopic world"
How technology has extended our senses so that we can "perceive" the vast reaches of the cosmos and all the way down into the subatomic world.

References for above images:
http://www.swarthmore.edu/NatSci/cpurrin1/posteradvice.htm
http://www.imageandmeaning.org/program2005.htm

Project Criteria:

SPACE is passionate about sharing knowledge across disciplines. Your exhibit may relate to the Senses, to an interdisciplinary topic of any kind, or reflect one of your interests and passions so that exceptional exhibits of any kind will be welcomed.

Our past partners, students and faculty, have shared work from projects completed within their various programs and have prepared exhibits specifically for the conference. We hope to promote and showcase this marvelous work again.

A note to faculty and program coordinators: Do you have a project to exhibit on April 7th?  Are there exceptional students in your program who would benefit from the venue SPACE will provide? Are you interested in beginning a collaboration with the SPACE team on a possible submission? Please contact us for more information.