system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Public Lectures: What are some basic dos and don'ts?

I'm giving my first public talk in a couple of months, but I'm nervous and want to start thinking about it now. Given my credentials (or lack, really, since I'm still in undergrad) I don't feel super confident about it all, and I want this to go really well. My supervisor/mentor is letting me have a very long rein on this one, so that I can get some practice in for organising/planning talks. How this is all received by the public matters a great deal to me, for various personal reasons that are not really relevant. The subject will be on radio astronomy in general, with a little bit on the work I have done in galaxy evolution and AGN jets. The location will be the town I grew up in (in Australia), where few people graduate high school and many more dropped out of primary school. 

So far, I've gathered that I should avoid all equations unless they're exceptionally simple. Given the location of the talk, even (what appear to me as) simple equations could be too confusing. I'm also acutely aware that the audience will likely span all ages and levels of education though, and I want everyone to be able to get something out of it without feeling like I spoke down to them or simplified things too much. I want people to leave feeling as though they learnt some cool stuff; maybe the kind of things they might briefly mention to a mate at work the next day or something. 

Do you have any other, perhaps blindingly obvious, tips for a public talk? I'm thinking that some general physics-y demonstrations could be useful as well, although I haven't made any decisions about what those would be. 

Apologies for the really simple question, but I suppose I have to start somewhere.
gpt
>the audience will likely span all ages and levels of education

This is key. Keep it simple. Describe the history of how the discipline developed, where it is today, and how your work fits into it.  Tell a human story... not just formulas, but who developed them, how they were developed, what they allow us to understand (in simple terms).  Show pictures. Do not put too much text on a slide. 

**Practice your talk in front of an audience that will be brutally honest with you.** It will help you pace your timing and curb bad public speaking habits. Have someone that knows nothing about what you're doing listen and ask questions, it will help you see your work from an outside perspective and anticipate the types of questions you might receive during the actual talk.

Good luck, you will do great.