This webinar focused on engaging younger audiences in climate change education using the analogy of a bathtub. Linda Booth Sweeney, a systems educator, and author shared innovative ways to educate children about climate change and provided age-appropriate and impactful learning experiences.

We started with a poll that asked attendees about their concern over rising climate anxiety among youth, and where they would start when a young person asks why we have climate change. The poll results showed that most attendees were either extremely or somewhat concerned about rising climate anxiety among youth, and would start with emissions or our human impact on the environment when explaining why we have climate change.

Linda Booth Sweeney introduced the Think Like a Bathtub video created for the COP26 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow to explain the basics of climate change dynamics. Attendees also got to learn about an interactive, augmented reality Think Like a Batjtub app, designed as a hands-on educational tool to demonstrate understanding.

To further engage younger audiences, Linda Booth Sweeney shared experiential games from her book, The Climate Change Playbook. Attendees were also provided with climate bathtub-related resources and journal articles to further educate themselves and their students.

This webinar provided educators, parents, researchers, and concerned citizens with the tools and resources to engage younger audiences in climate change education. The analogy of a bathtub proved to be an effective way to help children understand the complexities of climate change and inspire action. With Linda Booth Sweeney’s expertise in systems education and her passion for writing children’s books, we can look forward to more innovative and impactful learning experiences in the future.

For a TLAB talk or webinar run for your group, contact Linda (linda@lindaboothsweeney.net).

Watch the recording below

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About the Speaker

Linda Booth Sweeney is a learning expert who specializes in complex systems. In her System Leadership Labs, Linda works to give leaders space to think differently, and to experiment with language, visuals, tools, and knowledge architecture that better mirrors the complexity they are navigating. Linda co-founded Toggle Labs, a metaverse education studio, in 2018 to offer people of all ages immersive, learn/do opportunities to work with complex systems and co-create healthier futures. She is co-author of The Systems Thinking Playbook, The Climate Change Playbook, and numerous other books and journal articles. Linda also has a passion for writing children’s books. Her next book, Apart Together, is a child’s first book of system thinking and will be published by Balzer & Bray in September 2023. For more on Linda’s work, see on systems visit lindaboothsweeney.net, and lindaboothsweeney.com for her work on children’s education.

Resources

1. THREE-MINUTE VIDEO: Youth-narrated Video. Explains fundamentals. Start here!

2. AUGMENTED REALITY APP (pilot): Fun, interactive AR app to engage students (ages 8 and up) in 1 of 4 key shapes of climate change — a bathtub. Students engage in thought experiments around our current rates of global warming pollution, then demonstrate their understanding with peers and adults. How to use the app video for educators here.

3. BOOK: The Climate Change Playbook.

4. EXPERIMENTAL GROUP GAME: A group game suitable for ages 8-88, and groups of up to 25. Download a free PDF of the Bathtub game instructions here

5. RESEARCH: See TLAB Pinterest page with related resources and journal articles

7. STAY IN THE LOOP: Sign up here to receive updates on TLAB and other Linda news.

8. SUPPORT: Interested in supporting this initiative? Please donate here.

CONTACTS

Dr. Linda Booth Sweeney
linda@lindaboothsweeney.net

togglelab.com (metaverse education)
lindaboothsweeney.net (systems thinking)
lindaboothsweeney.com (children’s books)

A thought-provoking discussion led by internationally renowned expert Dennis Sherwood, as we explore the concept of creativity in System Dynamics and Systems Thinking. Delve into questions such as what precisely creativity is, how it differs from related concepts, and whether it’s just a natural attribute or a skill that can be learned, practiced, and enriched.

In this webinar, we gained a deeper understanding of the role of creativity in System Dynamics and systems thinking and learned about:

• The differences between creativity and related concepts such as discovery, invention, innovation, entrepreneurship, and design thinking
• Whether creativity can be developed and enriched as a skill
• The concept of “goodness” in ideas and how it relates to creativity
• The potential impact of AI on human creativity
• Valuable insights into the role of creativity in your projects.

Watch the recording below

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About the Speaker

Dennis Sherwood has been running his own UK-based consultancy, The Silver Bullet Machine Manufacturing Company Limited, for the last 20 years, specializing in all aspects of organizational innovation and creativity, including applying systems thinking and System Dynamics modeling whenever the opportunity arises! Dennis first became aware of the systems perspective when a consulting partner at Deloitte, and had the great benefit of being a student of John Morecroft at London Business School. Subsequently, Dennis was an Executive Director at Goldman Sachs and Managing Director of the UK operations of SRI (Stanford Research Institute) Consulting. Dennis has written many journal articles and blogs, and is the author of 15 books, including Seeing the Forest for the Trees – A manager’s guide to applying systems thinking (Nicholas Brealey Publishing, 2002), Smart Things to Know about Innovation and Creativity (Capstone Publishing, 2001), How to be Creative – A practical guide for the Mathematical Sciences, co-authored with Professor Nicholas Higham FRS FREng (SIAM, 2022), Creativity for Scientists and Engineers (UK Institute of Physics, 2022) and Strategic Thinking Illustrated – Strategy made visual using systems thinking (Taylor and Francis/Routledge, 2022).

See also a more extensive article based on this post, and watch the recording below on the topic.

Organizations of all sizes and types undertake programs of effort to improve their performance, whether it’s in the areas of health and safety, net-zero efforts, or digital transformation. But sustaining momentum for such efforts is tough, and many fail completely.

It turns out that such programs share a common structure, which can be used to assess how the program may progress, how benefits may grow over time, and the cost and effort of achieving them (figure 1).

Performance-improvement programs generally aim to eliminate or mitigate some problematic outcomes such as staff injuries, the loss of critical data, excessive energy use, and inefficient business processes. Those problematic outcomes are caused by previously unidentified problem drivers – hazards in business facilities, data vulnerabilities, inefficient or under-controlled energy-using assets, and inefficient business processes.

So the basic aim is to eliminate or mitigate those problem drivers. This essentially consists of two overlapping efforts [1] to find and quantify those problem drivers, then [2] to eliminate or mitigate those problem drivers that are found.

As benefits start to become apparent, two self-reinforcing mechanisms (R) kick in. First, the staff becomes engaged in its success and adds – often greatly – to the discovery of those unknown opportunities. This boosts leaders’ confidence, so financial savings from the program can be recycled to speed up the rate at which benefits are realized.

In due course, we run out of unknown opportunities to find, and the cost-benefit of remaining opportunities declines – two balancing mechanisms (B) that ultimately limit the benefits that can be gained.

Figure 1 – The overall structure of the system that underlies improvement programs.

Reviewing real-world cases revealed how the principles above actually work in practice. One example concerned a 2-year effort on energy-saving by a large ready-meals producer operating several facilities.

 Management appointed an energy manager, who soon brought monthly reports to the executive team, itemizing savings opportunities and specifying their impact, cost, and implementation steps. Those opportunities brought further benefits, such as lower maintenance costs and production downtime. The visible benefits led to staff adopting energy-saving behavior and finding still more opportunities. In under 2 years, the program saved 40% of the organization’s energy use – with no significant capital investment. Future investment will drive down energy use still further.

 The structure in figure 1 can be quantified and modeled,  then used to manage the program over time (A demonstration model is available at sdl.re/EnergySaving1, and a simple guide for its software is at sdcourses.com/silico-guide).

Background

The figure 1 framework and the working models that prove its value emerged from work for the British Standards Institution (BSI). BSI publishes internationally-recognized “ISO” management standards on a very wide range of topics. BSI commissioned a series of “serious games” to show the key choices and impact of adopting Standards – explore the first few games here, all built on working models of figure 1. BSI also wanted a game to encourage small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs), to drive down greenhouse gas emissions. See The NetZero Challenge.

Figure 2 –The results screen of the NetZero Challenge game

Watch the recording below

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About the Speaker

Kim Warren is an experienced strategy professional, teacher, and publisher of online courses and teaching resources on business modeling – fast becoming a mainstream capability for executives, consultants, and business students. He was awarded the Jay Wright Forrester Award by the International System Dynamics Society in 2005 and was the Society’s President in 2013.

Resources

Presentation Slides

Demonstration Model

The NetZero Challenge

Reviews provide valuable feedback for authors, offering new perspectives and posing insightful questions to help them improve their work. They can inspire authors to think more deeply about their research, while also exposing reviewers to new ideas and honing their critical evaluation skills. Helpful reviews can also motivate newcomers to the field and foster a sense of belonging within the System Dynamics community. Through the use of reviews, the program committee is able to thoughtfully place work within the broader conference program, allowing for authors to engage with their peers and build a sense of community among those working on similar topics. Conference attendees can then benefit from attending more cohesive and engaging sessions, ultimately leading to a more productive and fulfilling conference experience.

Do you want to become a conference reviewer or improve your reviews? Here are ten tips to write a great review.

Ten Reviewing Tips

1. Don’t be intimidated by the review process. It’s a terrific experience that can help you develop your own critical evaluation skills and expand your knowledge of the field.

2. Start early and don’t rush through the work. Take your time to read and evaluate the paper thoroughly so you can provide constructive feedback to the author.

3. Remember that reviews are not about accepting or rejecting work; they’re about providing feedback and suggestions to help the author improve their work.

4. Be courteous and respectful in your review. Start with a positive comment, summarize the paper, and offer constructive criticism and suggestions for improvement. If you have a different view of the paper, explain your perspective in a respectful way and provide additional resources that might be helpful to the author.

5. If you find yourself struggling to understand a section of the work, don’t assume it’s your fault. Ask the author to clarify the section or explain it in simpler terms for a broader audience.

6. When evaluating the work, pay attention to the assumptions, feedback structure, and parameter values. If it’s not clear how structure relates to behavior, ask the author for more clarification.

7. If your strength lies in theory or practice rather than modeling, your unique perspective will be a great contribution to the author. Consider adding notes to the program chairs to let them know what your strengths are.

8. Make sure you’re familiar with what was asked of the authors in the submission instructions. This will help you evaluate the paper more effectively.

9. Avoid providing unhelpful feedback in your review. Don’t simply summarize the paper without offering any suggestions for improvement. Don’t attack or threaten the author, and don’t be rude or condescending. Systems thinking based papers should be treated as complete papers and not regarded as lesser work for lack of simulation. Slamming the door on the author is not productive; if the paper is not a good fit for the current conference, the author can improve for next year’s conference.

10. Can you volunteer to review a paper if you’ve submitted one of your own? Absolutely! You will not receive your own paper to review. Further, the review process is blind, so you won’t know any author’s identity.

For other conference review questions, contact the conference team.

Student-Organized-Colloquium (SOC) reviews are processed separately. To review for SOC, sign up here.

Watch the recording below

About the Speakers

Allyson Beall King, John Pastor Ansah and Saras Chung are ISDC 2023 Program Chairs.