Re: [meteorite-list] Meteorite presentations (sorry if it's long!)

[Walter Branch]

Hi Edward,   You probably did better than you think.  It would be fallicious thinking to conclude that (a) everyone in the audience shares your enthusiasm about meteorites and (b) that you can persuade those who initially don't share your enthusiasm to be as enthusiastic as you by the time you leave the room.   I enjoy giving presentations to schools and I can tell you, with kids you have to lay off the details, bring plenty of samples, and be a very visual and animated presenter.   Remember, as a presenter, you know more about your topic than anyone else in the room, therefore it helps to place yourself in the position of your target audience, before your talk begins, to get a feel for how much visual vs. verbal information your audience can process.   I remember I was a nervous wreck when it came time to defend my doctoral dissertation before my five member dissertation committee.  I was sure they were going to trip me up of some obscure thing I had not thought of and planned for. A few days before the defense, my major professor gave me sound advice.  He reminded me that since I chose MY dissertation topic and I did the literature review and ran the subjects and collected and analyzed the data and wrote every word of the dissertation, I KNEW the subject better than anyone else in the room (including my major professor) and that I would be able to handle the defense "just fine."   He was right.   After the defense, we went out for lunch (I believe I had Shrimp Gumbo).  No big deal.   Bob's advice about humor and simplification are points well taken.  A few years ago someone on the list posted a picture of an iron meteorite (a gibeon or a campo, I believe) lying on top of a Barney doll and he stated that he had conclusive proof that a large meteorite killed off the dinosaurs. I really liked that I and think that would make a great "icebreaker."   Who did that and where is the image?!   I do a lot to presentations to kids and they sometimes have trouble with abstract concepts.  Depending on the developmental level of the class, I like to have kids represent planets by positioning them at relevent positions across the room (with a gap for the asteroid belt, later filled in by myself) then "set them in motion."  It helps to exlpain, through simplification and visual aids, basic orbital mechanics and how meteorites could travel from the outer to inner solar system and from the moon and Mars to the Earth.  This procedure or technique might not be suitable for all audiences but the point I, and Bob, am making is to adapt your presentation using humor and simplification.   I also bring along my magnet-on-a-stick (homemade, of course) and I point out that the only thing I have found with it are nails, barbed wire and rusty farm implements.  It is another simple way to break the ice and get the point across (that being that one usually just does not walk into you back yard, stoop down, and pick up a meteorite.   Unless your back yard happens to be called "Alan Hills"!   Anway, thanks for sharing your experiences.   I would really like to hear the techniques which others list members have found to be useful in presenting meteorites.   Best wishes,   -Walter ----------------------------------------------- Walter Branch, Ph.D. Branch Meteorites 322 Stephenson Ave., Suite B Savannah, GA  31405 USA www.branchmeteorites.com ----- Original Message ----- From: Edward R. Hodges To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, October 10, 2002 11:29 PM Subject: [meteorite-list] Meteorite presentations (sorry if it's long!) Hello list. It's very active today, I like that. Last night I gave a meteorite presentation at the San Diego Lapidary Society. It most certainly was not the first presentation I've ever given in front of people, but it was the first one about meteorites.  Their general meeting was called to order at 7pm, and they went about their business. You know, Robert Rules of order kind of stuff, and a raffle. It was quite pleasant actually. Most of the membership is quite a bit older than myself and my girlfriend. One kind older gentleman came over and told me great stories about the meteorites he's found. Other members came up to me with three different rocks and asked if they were meteorites, unfortunately they were not and I had to be the one to break the bad news. I finally got to speak around 8:15pm and was quite nervous. I made up a packet of text that I wrote with graphics, images, and other statistics and passed them out. I also brought about 50 specimens to show around and some moldavites and tektites. I really was geared up to give a really great talk, I had already visualized it in my head. So I introduced myself, and quickly warned them that:" I have a tendency to go off on tangents and never come back. Oh, and I'm longwinded at times, so I'll be sticking to the script" So I was very nervous all of a sudden and started to stammer and forget the words and had to begin reading. I told them about the beginnings of the solar system, accretion, asteroids, oxygen isotopes, fall statistics, identifying meteorites, classification with actual samples of each class, chemical make -up, Prospects for life elsewhere (alh84001, murchison, Allende,etc.), then I told them about the new large object that was just announced on Monday. Wow was I imparting the goods on these people. Then I looked up and people were nodding off, the people in the back had already snuck out. I had been talking for about 45 minutes. I could feel that hollow pit in my stomach becoming an abysmal void and I was getting sucked down. I could feel the beads of sweat forming on my bald head, my girlfriend was staring right at me. I wrapped in up quickly, and asked if there were questions. The few people who hadn't snuck out already had plenty of questions, and some were quite tricky. One woman right up front told me about her grandfather getting his haystack burnt down by a meteor. I didn't know what to say. I blurted out "Really, how interesting!" It doesn't quite seem possible to me, but I couldn't tell her that. I think it was well past there bed time, because after I ended the talk they politely clapped and got the hell out of there. I knew as soon as I sat down in the car what had gone wrong. I'm very hard on myself, very critical. My girlfriend told me what a great job I did, which is nice and I think she was trying to be nice. If you are this far down into this diatribe you've probably already got me pegged. I'm a nervous talker, and I'm longwinded. Strike one. I hadn't pictured the right audience in my pre-visualization. Strike two. I had mistaken a meteorite talk with a meteorite lecture. Strike three. When I was falling asleep last night I couldn't help thinking that I could know so much more on the topic. I now realize that all that information is not the important thing. The important thing is that you are entertaining the audience and creating an experience that they will remember. If your lucky they will learn something. I'm going to try and keep those things in mind next time. I'll try to be more show and less tell. Hopefully others of you have had these types of experiences and would share them. Maybe some of you can offer some tips, or criticisms. Perhaps some of you will tell me to please not write long emails and send them to this list. Anyway, I hope sharing was a good idea.- Edward   Edward R. Hodges www.meteoriteonline.com IMCA # 4173