Photo by Derek Redd West Virginia Northern Community College Speech 105 students Isabella Wise, left, and Bethany Greathouse, help set up their class’ display Friday during the college’s Student Showcase Symposium.

WHEELING — West Virginia Northern Community College students showed some of what they learned this semester — while learning a little bit about presenting their projects — during Friday’s Student Showcase Symposium at the college’s library.

Students from several classes set up displays on topics in the subjects of food science, environmental science, anatomy and physiology, ecology and more. Guests from the community, as well as representatives from organizations such as West Liberty University, West Virginia University, WVU Medicine and the United States Coast Guard, perused the displays and quizzed the students about their work.

Heather Kalb, associate professor of biology at WVNCC, said the symposium was created from her experience in four-year institutions, which would have capstone projects for their upper-level students.

“I wanted to get these students ready for those experiences,” she said. “When you go to a professional conference, you have an oral presentation and lots of poster presentations. Getting the confidence to be able to stand next to a poster that you’ve built and talk to people is a good skill to have.”

The symposium builds the “soft skills” — interpersonal communication, problem solving and adaptability — that businesses are looking for these days.

The college’s Speech 105 class put together a display for their “Speechless Pita” and “Snack-Stage Productions.” The group came up with the recipe for a healthy pita chip and presented that at Friday’s symposium, offering samples to guests. Some were packed in small plastic bags with logos created by some of the students.

“It’s kind of hard to really demonstrate a speech,” class member Cassidy Bowers said. “So with this, this is something where we can talk through the process of making it. We can explain what we did, what our groups did and how it all came together at the end.”

Bowers said the entire start-to-finish process of the project was eye-opening.

“Being a college student, it’s hard to kind of get things together,” she said. “But we were able to work together in class, talk together and get the plan going. In the end, it all worked out.”