EDISON Boards: Evidence Driving Inquiry & Science Observations Now

I have been a fan of crime drama's since I can remember. Starting back in the 1970's with Columbo and Kojack. To the 1980's with Hill Street Blues and Cagney and Lacey. To the 1990's with CSI and NCIS. Finally with current shows like Bones and Castle. As the shows changed over time, so did the way the detectives figured out the crime from looking at evidence in folders to taping it up on a crime scene board. These boards of evidence have always intrigued me. The way the yard and thumb tacks make all the connections. I am a visual learner and the boards are very visual. I also like to see the big picture unfolding slowly but surely and the boards allowed the detectives to piece together evidence that appeared to be unconnected into a semblance of a solution. Then ultimately, staring at the board the inspectors figured out who the murderer was. In my classroom I have always used some kind of interactive board or word wall but I was curious could I create a similar busy, interactive and organized display in my classroom?

At the end of this year, unfortunately too late to utilize it this year, while watching Rizzoli and Isles it dawned on me, why can't I utilize a crime scene board style apparatus in my classroom? An evidence board tied to science. So I put my thinking cap on and designed what I call an Edison Board, but rather then documenting evidence of a crime, my students will be organizing and displaying evidence of learning, seeing the big picture and making connections, fluidly and continually throughout the quarter. I plan on keeping it up for the entire semester making connections between units until we have a giant wall sized one for cells and the human body, our first semester. Then second semester there will be two different ones: genetics and adaptations and then its all about biodiversity, energy in an ecosystem and ground water.

Tomorrow my friend Tricia Reyes-Gragnano and I are teaching three different classes at our Katy Science Conference. One is about differentiation and asking questions and a second is about student-centered classrooms so in order to discuss Edison Boards I created two as examples one on "Innovation and Invention" and the way the brain works and a second about A "Mission to Mars." Both tie to our curriculum indirectly so I can also set them up in my classroom to show students what an Edison Board can look like, examples but not definites, because Edison Boards are flexible and determined purely by where the students go with them. Edison Boards are all about fluidity and change and students will add, subtract and mold them as they see fit throughout the year. I am excited to begin next year and see where their vision will lead us.