Simulated professional poster session as a (semi-) authentic learning experience

One of the major forms of scientific and technical communication is a poster session found at many scientific and technical conferences. Most students are not exposed to this type of communication early in their academic careers, and those who choose to enter into a non-technical major may never be exposed to this style of presentation. We report the results of a program to increase scientific literacy through the wide-scale implementation of a professional poster session-style presentation in an introductory physics course. Student groups were required to complete a term project and produce a poster that was displayed in a poster-style setting. In addition, student groups were required to make a ten-minute presentation to faculty teams as well as peer-review other posters. Both faculty and students overwhelmingly supported the initial implementation of this program.