ELA

1. Evidence: “The Shape of Change” (Lessons, Activities plus Simulations) ; The Habits of a Systems Thinker

"Making Friends" Lesson

2. Evidence: “The Mammoth Game” Including stocks and Flows (Lessons, Activities plus Simulations) ; The Habits of a Systems Thinker

"Making Friends" Lesson

NOTE: With every new game and activity learners seem to get more engaged and involved.

Description:

• During this day, we started off with:

1. General topic of “Who are we?; Where do we see ourselves as learners in relation to the world? What do we consider problems? How do we go about problems?...”
2. Next we connected what we do in History and what is the connection between the history topics we have covered during this project : WWI, WWII, League of Nations and going next to “Refugees”
3. Then we did the game “Arms Crossed” exploring “The problems we have created in the world today will not be solved by the level of thinking that created them” (Einstein) and ““Bad habits are like a comfortable bed, easy to get into, but hard to get out of.”.
4. Then we played the mammoth game;
5. We discussed “linear” and “exponential” rates in trends, especially trends affected by climate change. We discussed “cause and effect” which led us to the last game
6. “Equilateral Distance”

Physical activity demonstrates systems-thinking

Systems Activity(source unknown).:

A group from anywhere from about 10 up to 100 people all stand up, with room enough to move around. Ask each person to silently choose two people in the room as their points of reference. Then ask everyone to stand in a place which is equidistant from their 2 points of reference people (note: no one will ever let the other people know who their points of reference are.) It doesn't make any difference how far apart they are from the others as long as they are equidistant from both of their points of reference. Typically, after a lot of initial movement, the group will start to settle down a bit and then more movement will get triggered, and it just keeps going. There are some good lessons about the complexity of systems and the interdependency of various elements within a system, the delays inherent in reactions, etc.

- Doug OLoughlin

3. Evidence: “The Infection Game” lesson Including stocks and Flows (Lessons, Activities plus Simulations) ; The Habits of a Systems Thinker

Description:

• Students play a game that simulates the spread of an epidemic. The included Infection Game stock/flow map combines all the elements that were used in the previous lessons. Students apply all that they have learned about behavior over time graphs, stocks and flows, and reinforcing and balancing feedback loops to understand how and why the infection spread among them.
• After the lesson, the learners started discussion which led to “making connections” on their own: 1) They related the “spread of an epidemic” to current trends such as “snap chat” and villages in other countries running out of water. Learners were able to understand better the cause and effect of living conditions and health.
• Then we started talking about “what would it take for “us” as a class a and a small community to better understand and contribute to a bigger community? The learners decided to design a “body system”--each team drew different body system as their “portion” of a bigger “class system”. In order for the “entire body” (or class) to function, they were better able to understand how from “individual” and “reactive”, we can work together for a greater cause and become “proactive. They will present this approach to the middle school learners when they teach the middle school learners on systems within communities such as a class, school, or neighborhood and their impact.

4. Evidence: " The Tree Game including stocks and flows" (Lessons, Activities plus Simulations) ; The Habits of a Systems Thinker

Lesson

Description:

• Students explore what happens to the number of trees in a forest over time as a forester plants and harvests a certain number of trees each year. Playing the game, students experience resource management and the need for long term planning. The Tree Game complements science, social studies, economics and ecology units on renewable resources and sustainability. Math skills include computation, graphing from tables, and understanding the causes of patterns of change over time.
• Students play a game that simulates the growing and harvesting of trees. The game is set up so that the company’s stock of trees increases at a constant rate: the forester plants the same number of new trees each year. However, the trees are harvested at an increasing rate: the forester doubles his cutting rate each year. In addition to giving students an intuitive understanding of linear and exponential change, the game illustrates the difficulties of supplying a natural resource product in an environment with rapidly growing demand.