Now what? A Call to Action: Environmental Systems Lessons for Upcoming Generations

Description

By Alan Ticotsky; Editors Lees N. Stuntz and Anne LaVigne in collaboration with the Creative Learning Exchange

Environmental systems, social justice, public health, and economic prosperity are all connected. A crisis in any one of those complex areas affects all of them. Sometimes the challenges seem so daunting that we struggle to find hope. But improvement in any area can cause positive change in the others, too.

The lessons in Now What? A Call to Action: Environmental Systems Lessons for Upcoming Generations guide students and their teachers to use systems thinking tools and principles to identify connections between the natural environment and human society. Systems thinking encourages asking good questions and finding leverage points for implementing successful strategies. What’s changing? How are things changing? Why? Now what?

This book draws us into one of the most important questions of our time. The world faces a decision point in the 21st Century. Major “Environmental Systems” are becoming so stressed that our future quality of life may decline after hundreds of years of growth and development. But strategies and choices exist that lead to a happier outcome.

These environmental systems lessons contain activities and research about sustainability, land, air, and water for students to explore. Systems thinking tools help them discover ways to create an environment for the future that has the ability to regenerate as well as sustain. Because “the environment” is not a single, isolated system, all aspects of civilization are bound together in an interconnected web. Social justice, public health, and economic prosperity all depend on a healthy environment that is consistently regenerating.

Check out the Now What? A Call to Action BLOG.

The Creative Learning Exchange has many resources for educators interested in System Dynamics and systems thinking in K-12 Education.