Subject: 'The Carbon Bathtub' is National Geographic Magazine's 'Big Idea' for December

Posted by John F. Heinbokel on 11/17/2009
In Reply To:"The Carbon Bathtub" is National Geographic Magazine's "Big Idea" for December Posted by John Sterman on 11/17/2009

Message:

Mornin' all,

This won't be new for folks who have been following the work done by John
Sterman and the Creative Learning Exchange over the past few years, but for
newer or more casual participants in this work, there are some wrinkles that
can be useful in the K-12 domain. As the NGM writers point out at the end
of the 'big idea,' Sterman's students at MIT can learn this dynamic stock
and flow stuff. What is even more important, but not mentioned, is that,
while lots of other folks (including much younger students and students who
John may never see among the elite at MIT) also have problems with these
concepts, they too can learn how better to think about such systems (often,
I suspect, quicker than John's older and more
locked-into-other-ways-of-thinking students). For folks who might want to
explore that and provide some opportunities for growth for their students,
there are a couple on-line resources that could help

Linda Booth Sweeney and Sterman published their original study of MIT
students' stock-flow capacities in a System Dynamics Review article that is
available on John's web-site. Scroll down through the list at the following
url (you'll pass some great work on climate change!) to a link to their
paper from 2000:
http://jsterman.scripts.mit.edu/On-Line_Publications.html

A number of school programs have used the bathtub exercises to explore
student understanding. A summary of those results was the focus of a
workshop at the 2003 International System Dynamics Conference.
Participating schools each summarized their results and findings. While the
templates used and questions asked by each of the schools was different, the
results and experiences may be germane to this topic. That workshop is
summarized at:
http://www.systemdynamics.org/conferences/2003/proceed/PAPERS/S01.pdf

Hope some of this is interesting and useful.

john

Follow Ups:

'The Carbon Bathtub' is National Geographic Magazine's 'Big Idea' for December - John Sterman 11/18/2009 
'The Carbon Bathtub' is National Geographic Magazine's 'Big Idea' for December - Tony Phuah 11/20/2009
'The Carbon Bathtub' is National Geographic Magazine's 'Big Idea' for December - John Sterman 11/20/2009