| When a Butterfly Sneezes Story 8: A River Ran Wild |
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Author(s):
Linda Booth Sweeney |
Subject:
Cross-Curricular |
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Based on a true story of the Nashua River, the book describes the river over a 7000-year period.
Complex Systems Connection: Short and Long Term Conflicts. The limits to growth archetype tells the story of how overuse of the river to meet short-term needs lead to its near death over the long-term. |
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| When a Butterfly Sneezes Story 5: The Sneeches and Other Stories |
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Author(s):
Linda Booth Sweeney |
Subject:
Cross-Curricular |
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Prejudice between two groups leads to actions which further promotes exclusivity.
Complex Systems Connection: Shifting Burden, Short and Long Term Conflicts. The burden of solving a need for exclusivity is shifted to a short-term solution that takes away focus from the more fundamental answer to the problem. |
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| When a Butterfly Sneezes Story 4: Once a Mouse: A Fable Cut in Wood |
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Author(s):
Linda Booth Sweeney |
Subject:
Cross-Curricular |
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A hermit protects a mouse by turning him into bigger and bigger animals until finally he's a tiger. He becomes "too big for his britches," threatening others including the hermit. Finally, the hermit turns him back into a mouse.
Complex Systems Connection: Ineffective Action, Short and Long Term Conflicts. The hermit's solution creates a worsening problem over time. |
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| When a Butterfly Sneezes Story 3: The Cat in the Hat Comes Back |
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Author(s):
Linda Booth Sweeney |
Subject:
Cross-Curricular |
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A cat causes trouble for two children by making a giant mess when their mother is away.
Complex Systems Connection: Ineffective Action, Short and Long Term Conflicts. The cat's methods for fixing the problem (spots) leads to an even bigger problem. |
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| When a Butterfly Sneezes Story 2: The Old Lady Who Liked Cats |
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Author(s):
Linda Booth Sweeney |
Subject:
Cross-Curricular |
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When a mayor decides to eliminate all the cats on an island, it creates a cascading set of negative effects.
Complex Systems Connection: Ineffective Action, Short and Long Term Conflicts. By removing the cats, the system is completely pushed out of balance, creating havoc on the system as a whole. Only by bringing back the cats do the issues resolve. |
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 PDF
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| When a Butterfly Sneezes Story 11: The Lorax |
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Author(s):
Linda Booth Sweeney |
Subject:
Cross-Curricular |
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The desire to have more and more drives the Once-ler to chop down more and more trees to create a product he sells. Eventually, the trees are gone.
Complex Systems Connection: Short and Long Term Conflicts. The short-term action of cutting down trees (taking a resource faster than it can regenerate) eventually leads (after a delay) to the disappearance of the forest. |
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| Tooling Game |
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Author(s):
John Sterman, & Will Glass Husain |
Subject:
Cross-Curricular |
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From Catalina Foothills School District. STELLA II v. 3.0 model of John Sterman's "Tooling Game of Deadline Pressure." This model helps students analyze study habits; "tooling" is an MIT word for studying.
Complex Systems Connection: Cause within System, Short and Long Term Conflicts. Many people are familiar with the story of the grasshopper and the ant. This simulation allows students to experience the long-term pain of not keeping up with homework assignments! Students may think that teachers are out to "get them" with ever-increasing piles of assignments, but this simulation shows that their own study habits can be to blame for the end-of-the-semester crunch they run into. |
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 Zipped (Models & PDF)
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| The Tree Game for Primary Students (Grades K-3) |
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Author(s):
Anne LaVigne, & Lindsey Weaver |
Subject:
Cross-Curricular |
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Students explore what happens to the number of trees in a forest over time as a forester plants and a lumberjack harvests a certain number of trees each year. While playing the game, the class tracks the number of trees over time. Students can see trends and discuss what’s happening to the forest and why, connecting it to real-world needs and desires for lumber and paper products. They can then run and discuss a second scenario that shows how that trend can be reversed.
Complex Systems Connection: Cause within System, Short and Long Term Conflicts. People sometimes decide to use natural resources to meet present goals (satisfy customers, increase profits) and ignore long-term consequences. In systems where renewable resources are used up, people often blame others. Decisions to use the resource faster than it can be replenished is the real cause, however. |
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Zipped (Models & PDF)
Link to the simulation: http://www.clexchange.org/curriculum/shapeofchange/soc_6_treegame.asp
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| The Systems Thinking Playbook Exercise 9: Community Maze |
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Author(s):
linda Booth Sweeney, & Dennis Meadows |
Subject:
Cross-Curricular |
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Teams must navigate through an invisible maze without talking. Through the experience, they can consider how system structure and mental models affect results.
Complex Systems Connection: Short and Long Term Conflicts. Conflicts can arise between the short term (seeing the individual events) and long term (seeing the patterns) while solving the maze. Available from Chelsea Green Publishers |
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More about the book at: http://www.chelseagreen.com/bookstore/item/the_systems_thinking_playbook:hardcover%20with%20dvd
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| The Systems Thinking Playbook Exercise 8: Five Easy Pieces |
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Author(s):
Linda Booth Sweeney, & Dennis Meadows |
Subject:
Cross-Curricular |
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Without talking, teams work toward a group goal which requires the success of all individuals.
Complex Systems Connection: Short and Long Term Conflicts. Participants work to have each member of a team complete a task. Individuals on the team may complete the task (short term), but that completion can actually get in the way of the team completing the task (long term). The experience can also illustrate interdependencies within team structures.
Available from Chelsea Green Publishers. |
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PDF
More about the book at: http://www.chelseagreen.com/bookstore/item/the_systems_thinking_playbook:hardcover%20with%20dvd
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