STEM SEMINAR SERIES

Group Project
Summer 2018

Scenario: Your group has been invited to present to a grant review committee that has
one million dollars to fund up to three projects. Pick a topic that was presented within one
of the seminars. Work as a group to create a presentation to convince the committee of
the importance of this topic to both basic research and practical applications. Create and
print a 3D model to support your proposal.

Summary
Students will work in groups of three or four (no more than four!) to produce a presentation
that explores one of the seminar topics in more depth. Students will submit a brief proposal
for their project. Once approved, they will begin work on their presentation and supporting
documents. The 6-8 minute presentations, modeled after the seminars in this series, will first
be presented in Study Sections. Students may present their work as a PowerPoint or Prezi
presentation, a video, or a web site. When they present in sections, students will also need
to turn in the Proposal Worksheet and References. Students vote on the best of these to be
presented to all of the students during the final seminar periods of the summer. The top two
or three of these will then be presented at the Summer Award Ceremony.

The project is designed to follow the general structure of the presentations in the Seminar
Series, and must include the following required elements:
• A Brief History of the Topic
• An Overview of Current Research on the Topic
• Future Directions for Research on the Topic
• Important Practical Applications from Work on this Topic

Teams
Students work in teams of 3 or 4. All the members of a team need to be in the same Study
Section, and every team has to have both new and returning students.

Group Project Assessment:

Students in each group will be assessed on the following criteria:
• Proposal (10%)
• Individual Assignments (10%)
• Group Presentation (50%)
• Student Assessment of Group Performance (10%)
• Presentation Worksheet (10%)
• 3D Model Design and Quality (10%)
 Research Proposal
Students work together to choose a topic and submit a brief research proposal on Canvas by
9:00 PM on Tuesday, July 31st.

A form for this proposal will be provided that includes:

• Presentation title
• The seminar from which the topic was chosen
• A short proposal summary
• The presentation format (PowerPoint, Prezi, Video, Web site)
• Equipment/materials needed for the presentation
• The roles each group member will have in the project (e.g. researcher, writer,
graphic designer, photographer, interviewer, presentation organizer, presenter, etc.)
• A plan for addressing the required elements for your presentation

Presentation Format
Students may present their work as a PowerPoint or Prezi presentation, a video, or a web
site. Each presentation must last 6-8 minutes. During the presentation, each student will need
to tell the group what role they played in the project and two or more specific things they
contributed. The groups choose one or more students to do the presentation.

Proposal Worksheet and References (Due

Friday, August 10thth)
The Proposal Worksheet and References need to be turned on August 10th. The Proposal
Worksheet includes the final presentation title, a list of all of the group members and the
contributions they made and the roles they played, and information on educational
requirements and career options and outlook for the field. Each team will also have to submit a
list of at least 10 references they used to prepare their presentation.

Presentation Schedule and Selecting the

Winners
All five groups will present to their Study Section on Tuesday, Aug. 7th. Students will vote to
choose their top two groups to go on to the next round. The six groups chosen by Study
Section students (two from each section) will present to all the students in Lecture on
Thursday, August 9th.The best two or three of these presentations will be presented to the
Awards Ceremony on the evening of Friday, August 10th.

Each of these final groups who present at the Awards Ceremony will receive their share of
one million dollars to do research on the topic they have presented………