Every collaborative ecotone brings more voices and ideas to the table. It is exciting to see these partnerships flourish! David’s FMSC challenge, Amy Carney’s redesign, Matoska’s exhibition and The Big Sleuth are worth the effort. Their prototypes were the result of joyful and productive collaboration between youth and adults. And what separated this Big Sleuth day from other design thinking sprints was that staff and student voices shared equal weight. The space became our ecotone that inspired the edge effect that day.
THE NATURE OF AN EDGE OR ECOTONE FULL
Photo Charlie Miller with annotation by Jen Hegnaįlipgrid is a collaboration goldmine with ample space, an array of seating options, a pingpong table, a foosball table and fridge full of soda and water. Once teachers have made the rounds, they also have time to collaborate and get help from fellow colleagues on how they might best teach a complex concept or a new idea.” That’s the edge effect! Teachers walk around and help any student who has a question, so students might work with their own teacher or with a new teacher and hear another expert perspective. The entire math department staff is there. “Students who have a math question or need help with homework come to the media center on Mondays after school. To illustrate the point, Carney talks about Math Mondays.
When you create an ecotone, ideas just start to bubble up and people begin to use the space in new ways for new collaborations. Those moments most definitely lead to more collaboration!” “Some teachers are not comfortable teaching in front of other adults,” Carney observed, “but it happens organically when you bring your class to the media center. When Amy Carney redesigned White Bear Lake’s North Campus media center, she wanted a dynamic place that was welcoming and that challenged staff and students to try new things. Great media specialists have always curated ecotones - spaces ripe for unlikely collaboration.
It has illuminated the many ways we, as educators, create ecotones that enable the edge effect throughout our schools! How Does the Edge Effect Intersect With our Work? This edge effect has become an unexpected theme of our technology department’s year. Pato notes that her collaboration with Yo-Yo Ma and other artists in the Silk Road Ensemble is proof that the edge effect is a human phenomenon as well. And apparently, in ecology, this edge effect is where the most new life-forms are created.” The same richness found when biomes converge is present in the vibrant collaboration that happens when people of different backgrounds and experiences ideate together. Musician Cristina Pato explained that the edge effect “is the point in which two ecosystems meet, like the forest and the savannah. Indeed, the edge effect is seen in all ecotones that form the transition where two biological communities meet and integrate.Ī recent Hidden Brain podcast episode highlighted another aspect of the edge effect. This “edge effect,” as he called it, can be observed in grouse that forage on “the greater richness of the border vegetation” or in quail living on the “common edge between the brushy draw and the weedy corn.” The ocean shore is another classic example. In the 1930’s Aldo Leopold wrote about the fact that life thrives in areas where two different ecosystems come together. We can’t wait to see what they dream up! What is the Edge Effect? They’ve seized on the Feed My Starving Children challenge. Like David, the students instantly saw the problem as an opportunity. He was already working with a group of White Bear students who have created an ecotone ripe for changing established norms and exploring new solutions. Well, after speaking to the team, David saw an opportunity.
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