Bryan Rutan
CONTRIBUTOR
An event scheduled for next month is giving students at the University of Nebraska at Omaha an opportunity to showcase their research and creativity.
The Office of Research and Creative Activity is holding its annual Student Research and Creative Activity Fair on Friday, March 4 in Criss Library.
According to the organizers of the event, the fair provides a venue for all UNO students to showcase their research and creative activity via demonstrations/exhibits, oral presentations, performances and posters.
The presentations are an opportunity for students to share their work with peers from UNO and the community. The 13-minute presentations also provide practice for students who may be entering into fields where they will be asked to present work to employers or potential clients.
“The RCAF provides presenters with good experience in practicing a skill they’ll use later on and it also gives them a chance to gain exposure for their work beyond the people they typically work with directly,” said Stacey Newmaster, Staff Assistant in the Office of Research and Creative Activity.
Judges for the event will be selected from the community and will consist of business leaders, non-profit leaders, UNO alumni and other friends of UNO.
According to the RCAF website, prizes will be awarded to the students who are judged to have the top posters/demonstrations/exhibits, and oral presentations/performances. Prizes will be awarded for both graduate and undergraduate student presenters in each category.
Past winners include Olajide Cooper, who won an award for best undergraduate oral presentation for her research on the, “Effectiveness of target language acquisition methodology when used with Spanish speaking parents of deaf children.”
Newmaster said that the majority of students presenting at the fair are studying in the fields of Health, Physical Education, and Recreation (HPER), Biology and Information Science and Technology (IS&T).
The Office of Research and Creative Activity does encourage students from all disciplines to participate in the event, however.
In its eighth year, the fair will have no shortage of student presenters. According to Newmaster there are over 200 students who will be presenting their research and work for this year’s event.
“We’ve seen the number of students participating in the fair increase by 10 or 15 percent every year over the last few years,” said Newmaster.
The growth of the fair prompted a change of venue a few years ago. The student center was the site of the first four, but the increasing number of students interested in the event forced organizers to seek larger quarters like the Dr. C.C. and Mabel L. Criss Library.
Registration for the fair closed on Feb. 1 but the Office of Research and Creative Activity would like to encourage students and members of the community to attend the fair in order to provide support and feedback for the students who will be presenting.
