PerspectivesAre you interested in submitting a Perspective Article? Be sure to read The Science Advisory Board's Editorial Guides for Perspective Articles. Click here. Story-Boarding Science by Bala Rathinasabapathi Ph.D. Scientists endeavor to create new knowledge by erecting hypotheses and methodically testing them. From the conception of ideas to their culmination in peer-reviewed journal articles, this creative process has some similarities to that of an artist. I find that some of the methods of the artist can be applied to teach students the creative aspect of scientific research. Story-boarding, as defined by R. Y. Okazaki (University of Hawaii at Manoa), for audio-visual production consists of “a series of diagrams that are used in video production to depict the composition of a video segment.” Story-boarding is what many artists use to visualize their production. A series of boards with bits of information, figures and facts are first created. They are thought on, and their content and sequence are changed until the artist is satisfied. This is best shown in an exhibit at the Magic Kingdom in Orlando, FL where Walt Disney’s kitchen table story-board is kept as an exhibit. My graduate student and I have recently tested story-boarding to develop a research project into a publishable piece. While half way through the experimentation, we pinned small slips of white paper on a cork board, where we wrote the potential title, and contents in a manuscript style. At that point, we only had actual figures for figures 1 and 2 only and another seven figures were conceptualized. As new data was generated, we added or revised those figures. The best part of using this story board approach was that we could visualize our end product way ahead of actual experimentation and hence discuss the details of the methodology prior to experimentation. As scientists, we always do this type of visualization and concept development while doing research. However, the use of a formal story-board enhanced the educational value of this creative process so that the authors of the work could articulate detailed aspects of research well before executing all of the experiments. However, story-boarding is only one of many tools to teach scientific research. Students should carefully and critically read papers in their area of research, identify major gaps in knowledge and recognize the tools to solve the problems. In this regard, the most useful tool is a routine laboratory meeting where members of the research group discuss both the conceptual and experimental details of their research. We find that now that story-boards enhance communication in such meetings. Bala Rathinasabapathi Ph.D., Associate Professor, Horticultural Sciences Department, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611-0690 e-mail brath@mail.ifas.ufl.edu ### << Previous Next >> [ View All Perspectives ] |
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