iSCHOOL EVENT YOU MAY HAVE MISSED: CURATING SCIENCE POSTER SESSIONS

BY: ANYA BAKER

If you have friends in MSL2050, Professor Hooley McLaughlin's Curating Science course, you probably have heard about some of the cool stuff we've been doing this semester. After weeks of classes and student-led seminars on various topics in science, and some great field trips to the AGO's Frum Collection and the ROM's Invertebrate Lab, the class was ready to present their final individual projects in the Poster Session. Your elementary school science fair had nothing on this--the posters were highly professional, very creative, and demonstrated one of the most important things we developed in the course: a love of discovery.

We could interpret the word 'poster' in whatever way we desired, and so our projects ended up including posters, related images, demonstrations, a canine companion, multimedia elements, kinaesthetic activities, interactive elements, and even food! Topics ranged wildly, as you will see; it was a wonderful evening of learning and sharing, and everyone was delighted to show off what they had been researching and interpreting for the past few weeks.

Some projects and activities are represented below:

Kristen Atkins presented on rainbows; you could make your own rainbow using a flashlight and the globe of water! Next to her is Camille Sharp's project on imagined geographies. Photo credit: Anya Baker. 

Kate Roughley presented on food pairings and taste. I found out that I have an average number of taste buds, and am not a super taster. Photo credit: Anya Baker. 

Professor McLaughlin with Meaghan Dalby interacted with her project on 3D printing; she brought in a small 3D printer to demonstrate how it worked. Photo credit: Anya Baker. 

Cady Moyer (right) explained the migration of monarch butterflies; she even made small clay models of the different stages of the caterpillar's life cycle. Photo credit: Anya Baker. 

Dylan Dammerman guards the cookies that were part of her exhibit on expertise concerning chronic illness. Photo credit: Anya Baker. 

Leah Moncada developed her own board game for her project on speech impediments. 

Photo credit: Anya Baker. 

Mary Kate Whibbs and Cady Moyer interacted with Rowena McGowan's presentation on robotics. Mary Kate's project on fish is beside them on the table; she created a dating site for fish, to describe their mating habits! Photo credit: Anya Baker. 

Kasey Ball brought in a furry friend for her project on therapy animals. Photo credit: Anya Baker. 

Lindsay Small presented on colonizing Mars; her t-shirt was appropriately themed! Photo credit: Anya Baker. 

Bethea Penny and Victoria Stoneman interacted with Bethea's project on music. Photo credit: Anya Baker. 

Can you guess Tim Roth's micro-expressions? (from Veronica Stoneman's project on micro-expressions). Photo credit: Anya Baker.

I was unable to photograph all the projects--if you attended and have photos of what I missed, I would love to add them to this article; email me at anya.baker@mail.utoronto.ca. Thanks to all who attended the Poster Session!