by Nalani Linder and Colleen Ponto
In part 1 of this post, guest bloggers Nalani Linder and Colleen Ponto reported on what they learned about teaching systems thinking in the K-12 classroom during a recent visit with the Waters Foundation in Tucson, Arizona.
Back home in Washington, we have been reflecting on all that we saw in Tucson. Of the many good lessons we took away with us, some of them seem appropriate to share with anyone interested in teaching systems thinking (ST) or system dynamics (SD) to any audience:
- Don't spend too much effort on convincing skeptics about the value of ST and SD. Rather, focus your energy on those who are easily intrigued and receptive to the power of this way of thinking.
- Be open to experimenting with the full array of SD tools. For example, we were introduced to connection circles in Tucson (found in The Shape of Change) and recently experimented with teaching them at a workshop for adults. Participants found them useful for identifying variables and seeing interconnections in a story.
- Create examples in the area of the audience's expertise, once people get some of the time-tested systems stories
typically used to illustrate concepts (such as a thermostat to show a balancing loop, compounding interest to demonstrate reinforcing loops, and bathtubs to explain stock/flows). This may take work, but is worth the effort in order to create better understanding and more effective application.
For our part, we are focusing on developing systems thinking lessons within the K-12 science and environmental sustainability curriculum, as those are the two subject areas driving the integration of systems thinking into our state's classrooms. We see our task as helping teachers to learn ST basics so that they can insert systems language and tools into the curriculum they are already using.
Continuing on this journey, we are eager to learn more from the many who have been doing groundbreaking work in systems and education, such as the Waters Foundation, the Creative Learning Exchange, the Cloud Institute, the SoL Educational Partnership, and others--including those who have left us, like Barry Richmond and Dana Meadows, whose ideas continue to inspire and guide.
We expect that the road to statewide implementation of systems thinking in education is long and winding. However, we hope and firmly believe that through the implementation of these standards, Washington's students will learn to make better choices about their own actions in the many systems in which they live. And in a lovely reinforcing loop, adults will be able to witness and learn from students: to pay attention to systems and to ask ourselves what we're noticing, too.
Many thanks to Nalani and Colleen for contributing their story. Share your thoughts about their learnings or on your experiences with teaching systems thinking by commenting on this post.
Nalani Linder is an independent consultant and workshop facilitator who works with change agents of all ages to help them learn, practice, and apply systems thinking ideas and tools in their schools/organizations, communities, and personal lives. She is currently co-principal of a research study exploring connections between systems thinking and learning preferences.
Colleen Ponto, Ed.D., teaches at Seattle University, where she is a core faculty member of the Organization Systems Renewal Graduate Program. OSR specializes in helping adult learners to become designers and leaders of systemic organizational change. Colleen is also an independent educational and organizational consultant; one of her current passions is helping learners of all ages develop their systems thinking skills.
by David Packer
In the language of system structure, there are two basic ideas: stocks and flows. Flows are like water in a pipe, measured in units per time intervals, like gallons per minute. Stocks are where the flows go and from whence they come, like bathtubs. Stocks are
accumulations of things, with inflows and outflows. The only way to change stocks--to fill them or drain them--is by changing flows in or out.
Because of the difficulty most people have seeing how stocks will behave given variations of inflows and outflows, stocks provide the biggest challenges in comprehending the behavior of our social and physical systems. They are hard to change, because they are often so large relative to the size of the flows. Think how long it takes to fully fill your bathtub, a swimming pool, an oil tanker. Think how long it takes for the CO2 in the atmosphere to drain away, even if the input is cut to nothing.
And think about the bathtub full of the unemployed in the U.S., which haunts us now. This is a very large stock of millions of people, about 10 percent of the workforce. Each month, a substantial inflow of new people join the stock, as individuals lose their jobs or come of working age; another substantial outflow of people get jobs, give up their job searches, compromise, die, and the like. As long as these flows are about the same, the stock of the unemployed remains unchanged, which it has for a while. Without going into numbers (which you can do as an exercise), it is clear that bringing down the stock, even assuming robust job creation, will take more than a handful of years.
Because people don't generally understand the length of time required to reduce a bloated stock, the political risk is also great. Beware, President Obama, of any rhetoric or commitments that make the task of draining this stock seem easy to do in the short run (like before the next elections).
Another question is how we got into this particular pickle so suddenly. One way to think of the situation is to look back a couple of years, when we were in seemingly happier times, and envision two bathtubs. One is the stock of unemployed then, a normal few percent of the workforce. The other is the stock of people employed in the bubble businesses--devising new financial instruments, marketing creative mortgages, designing and building houses and offices financed by those creative endeavors--and in businesses based on the added spending of those in the bubble industries.
Now visualize the burst of the bubble. When bubbles burst, explosive flows emerge, and the stocks into which they flow rise rapidly. Over a short time period, the bathtub of bubble employees flowed at amazing speed into the unemployed bathtub, more than doubling its count. As we know, unemployment soared.
So we are left with a dangerously out-of-balance system. Hoping for new bubbles to absorb the excess unemployed is absurd. The normal, responsible processes of increasing outflows and reducing inflows take real time. Just recognizing the structure in which we have trapped ourselves, by visualizing the stocks and flows, is a first step toward health.
It provides a perspective, a lens that increases the urgency for actions to change the flows and an anchor that protects us from false expectations of a quick-fix rosy future. And maybe, just maybe, there is also a flow into a stock of learning that will serve us well.
David W. Packer is founding partner of the Systems Thinking Collaborative, a veteran of the MIT System Dynamics Group and of Digital Equipment Corporation, and on a variety of boards. He and spouse Ginny have parented five and are now grandparents to twelve. And he is a Red Sox fan, among other things.
By Greg Hennessy
The 2009 International Conference of the System Dynamics Society was recently held in Albuquerque, NM. I was a member of the Society throughout much of the 1990s and attended several of
the conferences. Work demands and personal considerations lead me to neglect the annual meeting for the last 10 years. But a renewed professional focus on system dynamics led me to signing up for this year's conference, and I felt both excitement and a bit of trepidation--the Society had been very "cliquey," and I had mixed feelings about my prior involvement.
Many of the old guard were in attendance, men from whom I learned so much. Some, like John Sterman and Dennis Meadows, I have worked with directly. Others, like George Richardson, Peter Milling, and Jac Vennix, have influenced me more than they will ever know, even though I've only met them briefly once or twice. I was reminded of what a truly amazing community the Society is.
There were also many new faces . . . a great many. The poster session, which at the 1993 conference in Cancun consisted of a handful of static presentations, ran fully down two sides of the plenary ballroom. There must have been at least 100 posters presenting the findings of roughly twice that many authors, spanning an amazing range of problems. And while the Society's conferences have always had an impressive international representation, it used to be weighted toward a handful of universities in the U.S. and Europe. In Albuquerque, I saw an inspiring range of affiliations. Every continent was represented, most amply. (To be fair, I did not see anyone with an "Antarctic" hometown listed on their badge. But I did overhear someone talking about time spent on the southern continent.)
It was also terrific to see the range of demographic diversity at the conference. Like every person I've ever met with a systems perspective, I firmly believe that diversity provides a means to polish our lens on the world. And the Society will only benefit from the breadth of perspectives that are being brought into the community.
The plenary sessions were by and large very good. A few speakers could have reduced their speed or bombast . . . or both. But most were well done, and several were truly inspiring. The conference was bookended by keynotes from Dennis Meadows and John Sterman. Both spoke about global climate change, but each with his own take on how to address it. Seemingly resigned to the inevitable, Meadows gave a sobering presentation that emphasized the need to help communities adapt to the oncoming changes. Sterman rallied the assembled troops, calling on the spirit of Dana Meadows, to insist that we have "exactly the right amount of time we need." His presentation of the C-ROADS model (a decision-support computer simulation model that allows policy makers to vary assumptions about carbon emissions and see the long-term results) provided hope to many that we might yet get the policy changes needed to avoid the worst effects of climate change. While some may debate which point of view is right or more useful, I plan to call upon each, as appropriate, to keep me focused on the job ahead.
Other plenary standouts included an exploration of healthcare policy reform issues, presented by Bobby Milstein of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Jack Homer, and Gary Hirsch; a pair of interesting presentations on psychology and social dynamics; and an exploration of pandemic influenza using agent-based modeling, by Robert Glass of Sandia Labs.
The parallel sessions were, perhaps naturally, a mixed bag. But the selection committee did a good job at sorting the presentations and presenters into cohesive hour-long sessions. It is simply amazing to catch one of the "rock stars" talking to a small group of 30 or 40, and probably more exciting to catch one of the up-and-comers.
Next year's conference will be in Seoul, Korea. I'm not sure if I'll be able to make it. But I bet it'll be worth the trip.
Greg Hennessy is a consultant with the Systems Thinking Collaborative and teaches at St. Edward's University in Austin, Texas. He studied System Dynamics at MIT and will be starting the doctoral program in Environmental Science at UNLV in January 2010.
By Janice Molloy
Can a computer model help save the planet? The folks at Climate Interactive, an initiative out of Sustainability Institute, are counting on it.
System dynamicists have been spreading the word about sustainability since the publication of Limits to Growth in 1972. So it comes as no surprise that a group of MIT-trained modelers has teamed with experts from other fields to create an ever-growing set of user-friendly, scientifically grounded climate change simulators.
The goal of Climate Interactive is to provide fast, accurate answers to "what if" questions so that decision makers and others can see the results of different scenarios on carbon emissions, atmospheric carbon levels, and temperature. This information can then inform policy discussions at all levels--from U.N. negotiations to high-school classrooms. CI is also sharing their analytical tools using open source approaches so that others can adapt, incorporate, and build on them.
The online version of CI's primary simulator, Climate Rapid Overview and Decision-support Simulator (C-ROADS), was released today. Two other free simulators are already available: The Climate Bathtub Animation and MIT's Greenhouse Gas Simulator. CI also has a blog, written by long-time Pegasus contributors Drew Jones and Beth Sawin.
Try the "sims" and send the CI folks your feedback!
By Janice Molloy
In these days of trying to accomplish more with less, the idea of finding "leverage points" takes on added appeal. Leverage points are places in a system where a small change can lead to a large shift in behavior. The tools of systems thinking can help us identify those areas where timely action can make a key difference.
But, there's a catch: Jay Forrester, the founder of the field of system dynamics, has observed that although people often intuitively know where to find leverage points, they unfortunately tend to push the change in the wrong direction.
A forthcoming article in the Journal of Socio-Economics on policies around shoplifting illustrates this inclination. Retailers frequently respond to theft by boosting surveillance and increasing prices to cover the losses and added expenses. Economics professor Gideon Yaniv used a mathematical analysis to show that, if store owners want to maximize profits, they should do exactly the opposite: lower prices and lessen surveillance. Shoplifting then declines because goods are more affordable, and merchants no longer incur additional costs for security details and equipment.
Are there places you have observed where a counterintuitive action might have a big impact?
Sources
Donella Meadows, Thinking in Systems: A Primer (Chelsea Green, 2008)
Kevin Lewis, "Uncommon Knowledge: Low Prices! Easy Shoplifting!" The Boston Globe (May 10, 2009)
photo from www.freefoto.com