Science Forward

I attended the Saturday 10AM-12PM poster presentation session at the Macaulay building and was actually really surprised by the variety of projects I found as I went around to “judge” the different qualities of each poster. In reality, I was stopping myself from nominating all of them. I can’t remember specific titles, but I would like to discuss a few of the posters I’ve seen and their presenters.

One of them, about the differences between males and females in their altruistic tendencies/attitudes, was the first one I visited. They began by telling me of a study conducted by professors in which it was found that, on average, men were more likely to “donate” or “be altruistic” toward complete strangers or organizations than women. However, while having their group members take turns being the observers and the confederates, they quickly found that women were much more likely to contribute $0.75 toward a bus fair than men. I was surprised to find myself asking questions to delve deeper into their research, and was equally surprised when they actively and enthusiastically engaged in return. The group even suggested future ideas/expansions of their project.

Another project that I noticed was about the effects of SO2(g) emissions and water pollution on avian birds. When I walked up and skimmed the poster, and before the presenter even began his spiel, the first question I asked was whether plastics pollution and albatrosses were part of his research project. And, although the research he did came entirely from public domain (I asked if he had done on-site research mid-way), his main conclusion was that the only real direct correlation (-1 to +1) was seen with SO2(g) which had a -0.58 correlation, approximately, and Ozone, which had something along the lines of -0.83–0.85 correlation to their effect on avian bird species. He said that, although the data was largely flawed and incomplete, he would like to have seen more government-funded studies.

In my opinion, one of the more original ideas was the Geophysics of wine production/grape growth poster. I haven’t really engaged in physics ever since I finished competing in physics national science olympiad competitions in high school. To see young college students presenting a project on how electricity in the soil affects grape crop production was definitely something new.

Furthermore, I had enjoyed presenting when my project partners and I switched off to give each other a chance to look around. We had practiced presenting prior to the start of the event. While people came up to us to view our project, and as more ideas flowed as a result of the questions asked, it became easier  to present and the audience (the people looking at our poster at that moment) became interested in our topic. We got a lot of positive feedback, and the people who viewed our poster said that they liked how we presented our data, as well as the geographical pictures of Plumb Beach. Overall, I think this day was a success because we were able to inform many on the hazards and future outcomes of plastic pollution.