The goal of the ENV Senior Colloquium is to help students think about (and implement) effective ways to communicate their research. To this end, the colloquium takes a hybrid approach:
In the Fall semester, students attend the four HMEI Faculty Seminar lectures (roughly one every three-four weeks). They will then meet as a group with the colloquium instructor that same week to discuss both the work and the communication strategies employed by that speaker: What worked? What did not? What is different in communications approaches across the different fields? What do you think the speaker struggled with the most in deciding which of his/her work to include and what to leave out? How does the speaker talk in precise terms about their work but not get bogged down in tedious details that might lose the interest of a broad audience? etc.
Within at most 10 days from each lecture, students will also meet as a group with the speaker to be able to directly ask questions.
Expectations for Fall semester: students are expected to read one paper/article for each lecture (which will be provided by the speaker in advance), to attend each lecture (or watch the recording), and to participate in the discussion sessions described above.
In the Spring semester, students will meet 4-5 times to brainstorm about the best ways to communicate their own work and to try out different approaches to get feedback and reactions from both peers and the instructor. Expectations: ultimately, these meetings aim to help students: (1) put together their poster for Discovery Day; and (2) make a 2 minute long video in which they present the environmental dimension of their research for a broad audience. In these videos, students are encouraged to engage with the idea of what makes for effective communication, get creative, and have fun!
The student videos will all be screened as part of a 2-hr premiere, open to the entire HMEI community and they will be scored by a faculty committee. The student deemed to have produced the best 2 minute video will be awarded the Henry Horn prize. The best three videos will be showcased on the HMEI website.