Some people in business suggest, “If you can’t put an idea in a PowerPoint slideshow, it’s not worth sharing.†It is no mystery that seeing, in addition to hearing, is an important complement to learning and communicating. Presentation tools like PowerPoint can be used to illuminate ideas and enhance their understanding.
However, long before computers, multimedia presentations, and PowerPoint slide shows, there were the Posters. The Posters were the artistic creations of Leon and Rachel Gathany: text and pictures on poster board used in their presentations to Sunday School, Vacation Bible School, and other church groups. They were used to teach the words to a song or tell a Bible story. These Poster were a visual medium to communicate God’s love and his message of redemption.
Youngsters were singing songs in church with Pastor Leon holding a poster and pointing to the words for each line. They learned the words to many songs with the posters, while the matching pictures enhanced the meanings of these words.
Some of these early posters have been lost with time. However, the graphic below is a recreation that captures the feel of these hand-made displays.
Step forward many years. Leon was a Georgia State Park Naturalist and he and Rachel were presenting nature awareness programs for schools, civic clubs, church groups, senior citizens, and campers. They used this same seemingly low-tech medium of posters to present concepts and ideas in a memorable fashion.
Following are samples of posters that were used in their presentations.
Prey, Predator and Scavengers:
A predator feeds on other living things (prey),
while a scavenger eats animals that are already dead.
Native Americans Ways of Life:
How did they treat the environment?
What from their culture do we see every day?
Insects (Not Just Bugs!)
Insect Orders.
Head, Thorax and Abdomen.
God’s Amazing Creation:
On the fifth day of creation God filled the sky with
birds and the seas and rivers with living things.
