| 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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| The Systems Thinking Playbook Exercise 4: Thumb Wrestling |
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Author(s):
Linda Booth Sweeney, & Dennis Meadows |
Subject:
Cross-Curricular |
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Participants play a game with commonly known rules and goals.
Available from Chelsea Green Publishers.
Complex Systems Connection: Cause within System, Ineffective Action. Participant's mental models about the the system structure (the game) get in the way of significantly improving performance. As efforts increase, performance actually goes down. |
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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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| The Systems Thinking Playbook Exercise 29: Space for Living |
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Author(s):
Linda Booth Sweeney, & Dennis Meadows |
Subject:
Cross-Curricular |
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Given a set of rope circles, participants must find a way to have every person have both feet inside a circle. After each round, circles are removed until everyone must find space inside the last circle.
Complex Systems Connection: Ineffective Action. Participants must find a way to share a limited (and shrinking) resource. As they attempt to solve the problem, they must shift a mental model in order to successfully meet the goal. 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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| Shape of Change (Lesson 9): The Connection Game, including Stocks and Flows |
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Author(s):
Rob Quaden, Alan Ticotsky, & Debra Lyneis |
Subject:
Cross-Curricular |
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From "The Shape of Change." Students play a game in which their movements around the room depend on the movements of other players.
Complex Systems Connection: Ineffective Action, Incorrect High-Leverage Policies. This lesson can be used to gain an intuitive understanding of what it means to say a policy has "low leverage." This lesson can be used to gain an intuitive understanding of what it means to say a policy has "high leverage." |
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PDF
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| Modern Electronics: Teaching Economics to High School Students with a System Dynamics Simulator |
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Author(s):
Gary B. Hirsch |
Subject:
Social Studies |
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Teaching economics with a simulator can actively engage students and help them learn more effectively. This paper describes a simulator that teaches students economics in terms of a familiar economic institution, the retail store. The simulator casts the |
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PDF Zipped (Models & PDF)
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| Modeling Dynamic Systems Section 8 |
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Author(s):
Diana Fisher |
Subject:
System Dynamics |
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Policy analysis gives students an opportunity to learn first-hand that complex systems are rich in feedback. They will experience the frustration of implementing well-meaning interventions, only to have them defeated by the feedback mechanisms of the system itself. They will learn why some policies have more leverage than others, and why those policies are often the most difficult to implement correctly in real life. |
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PDF
Link to the simulation: http://www.iseesystems.com
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| Modeling Dynamic Systems Section 6 |
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Author(s):
Diana Fisher |
Subject:
System Dynamics |
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In the classroom example provided in this section, the author lists many "potential systems problems" that are related to the issue of overpopulation. As an extension exercise, students can be asked to identify ways in which people have attempted to solve these related problems. Did the solutions address the underlying population issue in any way? Were they successful interventions? In complex systems, proposed solutions that do not recognize and address the underlying dynamics that need to be changed are low-leverage policies; they usually fail to achieve any significant change in the overall behavior of the system. Students can be asked to undertake a similar analysis in their own investigation of a news story. |
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PDF
Link to the simulation: http://www.iseesystems.com
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| Influenza |
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Author(s):
Ryan Ivie |
Subject:
Student Work |
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A 1999 SyMBowl finalist paper. This paper discusses a model developed to provide a realistic look at how influenza affects a population.
Complex Systems Connection: Ineffective Action. |
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Zipped (Models & PDF)
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