A new seed has been planted for Pre-College Systems Thinking and System Dynamics education in South Korea. The Ministry of Education has officially approved the establishment of the Systems Thinking Education Social Cooperative—the first government-recognized social cooperative in the world dedicated specifically to Systems Thinking education.

According to co-founder Dr. Benjamin Chung, the cooperative currently consists of ten instructors working outside the formal school system, with plans to expand membership and deliver SD/ST-based educational programs to schools through various public initiatives. As a legally defined social cooperative, all profits must be reinvested into its mission-driven programs rather than distributed to members.

Türkiye has taken an important step toward bringing systems thinking into K–12 education. Beginning in the 2024–2025 academic year, the Ministry of National Education (Milli Eğitim Bakanlığı, MEB) will gradually implement a new national curriculum approved by the Board of Education and Discipline on 23 May 2024. Systems thinking is formally included for the first time within this framework, presented in the document titled Türkiye Yüzyılı Maarif Modeli: Common Text for Curriculum Frameworks.

In this document, systems thinking appears as one of the inter-program components, intended to support a dynamic teaching process and to help clarify implicit educational goals. Under the section Systems Thinking and Literacy Skills, MEB emphasizes that systems thinking is a crucial tool for understanding and managing real-world complexity. Literacy is defined as the ability to comprehend complex systems and recognize relationships among their components—competencies that the new curriculum aims to strengthen as part of lifelong learning.

The curriculum’s definition of systems literacy aligns closely with the approach long promoted by the Systems Thinking Association in Turkey. Key components include identifying system parts, analyzing and structuring systems, using tools to anticipate system behavior, addressing system-level problems, and transforming solutions into action. The document also relates system literacy to nine other literacy domains—such as data, sustainability, digital, financial, civic, and visual literacy—positioning systems thinking as a foundation.

These competencies are intended to be developed implicitly and across all subjects, grade levels, and learning environments. Teachers are encouraged to integrate them into classroom and extracurricular activities wherever appropriate.

Leading universities worldwide are adopting University Social Responsibility (USR) and innovative educational practices, fostering effective innovation ecosystems through partnerships with international cities and regional developments. The iiLABs alliance, comprising National Chengchi University (NCCU), the National Science and Technology Council in Taiwan, and the System Dynamics Society, is dedicated to education for sustainable development (ESD) and sustainable system development (SSD) projects that relate to livable cities, cultural innovations, and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Under the leadership of Prof. Dr. Min-Ren Yan, NCCU has spearheaded SSD projects, such as a city-based educator training program and sustainable system education for pre-college teachers and students. These programs integrate Systems Thinking and System Dynamics education to promote sustainable system development within local contexts.

Nationwide SSD education centers have been established with support from the government, academia, and industry, featuring training workshops for pre-college teachers. These workshops offer a new pedagogical perspective and encourage interaction, clarification, and analysis of relevant issues.

To effectively implement Systems Thinking and System Dynamics in Taiwan’s national education curriculum, alignment with the local cultural context is crucial. Initiatives such as ‘Learning in Livable and Sustainable Taipei City’, ‘New Taipei City Education Innovation Hub’, ‘Fanyuan Education Center and National Park’, ‘Kavulungun Cultural Heritage Education Park’, involve school teachers, students, and communities, addressing critical issues.

Educational activities with a Systems Thinking theme for students and workshops for teachers have proven successful in the metropolitan and central area of Taiwan. NCCU, with its long-established legacy of leading national education policies, continues to receive government support for its SSD education centers, ensuring sustained positive impacts on education practices and society. Collaboration with the SD society and contributions enrich the SSD educational program.

Pureun Middle School, an International Baccalaureate (IB) school in South Korea, recently hosted the ‘World Climate Simulation Game’ from December 26th to 29th. The event engaged 300 students and aimed to promote global sustainability.Working with World Climate Ambassador Benjamin C.K. Chung and subject teachers, the school utilized the ‘Climate Interactive’ website to employ computer simulations that emphasized systems thinking to illustrate climate and environmental changes. Although teams did not meet the UN’s 2.0-degree target, the experience has led to a renewed commitment to climate action and international cooperation among students. This was driven by insights gained through system dynamics.

Lee Ji-Eun, the IB Coordinator, praised the students for their active participation as representatives in a mock ‘UN Climate Change Conference.’ The students showcased their ability to propose solutions rooted in systems thinking, such as the development of new technologies and the expansion of the green fund.

Yoo Yeon-Je, a second-year student, found the hands-on activity more engaging than traditional classroom learning. It provided a deeper understanding of global warming issues through the lens of system dynamics and motivated a commitment to positive environmental influence in the future.

Principal Yang Ga-Mil emphasised the event’s application of ‘System Dynamics Theory,’ developed by Professor John Sterman and MIT researchers, for addressing climate change challenges. The school aims to integrate international-level programs with IB education, empowering students to explore practical solutions through enhanced systems thinking. This will improve their social skills.

Meeting: Thursday, November 20, 2025

Meeting: Friday, November 21, 2025

Link for Using news articles containing feedback loops to foster thinking about real-world systems (Kim Kastens) presentation

Link for Finding News Articles Containing Feedback (Alan Ticotsky) presentation

Meeting: Thursday, October 23, 2025

Meeting: Friday, October 24, 2025

Link for Guidelines Using AI to Build Small Stock-Flow Models (Diana M. Fisher) presentation

Link for Teaching with CLDs using AI (Karim Chichakly) presentation

Meeting: Thursday, August 28, 2025

Meeting 1: Monday, April 21, 2025

Meeting 1: Thursday, January 23, 2025, noon ET (New York)

Meeting 1: Thursday, November 21, 2024, noon ET (New York)

Meeting 1: Thursday, October 24, 2024, 1:00 pm ET (New York)

Meeting 2: Friday, October 25, 2024, 1:00 am ET (New York)

Link for Using AI to Help Teachers Determine Initial Stock-Flow Diagrams for Modeling Lessons (Diana M. Fisher) presentation

Link for AI-powered Open-ended Question Experiments (Emre Göktepe) Miro board

Thursday, August 22, 2024, 1:00 pm ET (New York)

Link for the chat file:

Link for Useful Macroeconomics (David Wheat) presentation

Meeting 1: Thursday, July 25, 2024, 1:00 pm ET (New York)

Meeting 2: Friday, May 26, 2024, 1:00 am ET (New York)

Meeting 1: Thursday, May 23, 2024, 1:00 pm ET (New York)

Click here for the presentation done and notes taken by Pascal Gambardella.

Meeting 2: Friday, May 24, 2024, 1:00 am ET (New York)

Meeting 1: Thursday, March 21, 2024 1:00 pm ET (New York)

Meeting 2: Friday, March 22, 2024 1:00 am ET (New York)

Meeting 1: Thursday, January 25, 2024 12:00 am ET (New York)

Meeting 2: Friday, January 26, 2024 12:00 pm ET (New York)

Hwaseong Elementary School, 5th Grade – Systems Thinking Education Using Game – June 29, 2023.
(Video played in the beginning of the meetings)

Meeting 1: Friday, October 27, 2023 1: am ET (New York)

Meeting 2: Friday, October 27, 2023 1: pm ET (New York)

Wednesday, July 26, 2023 10:00 am (Chicago – Central Daylight Time: UTC-5)

Thursday, April 20, 2023 1:00 pm (Eastern Time US) – Click here to watch meeting recording!

Presentations:

Bullying in the classroom (project by Uğraş Demir, Kurtuluş İpek İşeri Primary School, presented by Ülkem Yararbaş, Ege University, Turkey)
Using ST in psychological counseling of students experiencing academic difficulties (presented by Meltem Ceylan Alibeyoğlu, Darüşşafaka Schools, Turkey)

Thursday, February 23, 2023 12:00 pm (Eastern Time US) – Click here to watch meeting recording!

Presentations:

Using The Systems Thinking Iceberg Visual with K-12 Students (presented by Joan Yates, Waters Center for Systems Thinking)

Thursday, November 17, 2022 12:00 pm (Eastern Time US) – Click here to watch meeting recording!

Friday, 28 October 2022  1:00 – 2:00 PM (Eastern Time US) – Click here to watch meeting recording!

Thursday, September 15, 2022 1 pm (Eastern Time US) – Click here to watch meeting recording!

Thursday, April 21, 2022 1 pm (Eastern Time US) – Click here to watch meeting recording!

Thursday, February 24, 2022 12.00 noon (Eastern Time US) Click here to watch meeting recording!

Agenda

• We have an activity planned for part of this Pre-college SIG meeting.  One of our SIG leaders, Nilay Yilmaz, is a children’s book author in Turkey.  Nilay is in the leadership team of a multidisciplinary group of preschool, primary school, and middle school teachers, a medical doctor, and an engineer. The group has been working on systems thinking concepts (interconnection, feedback dynamics, stock/flow relationships, etc.) that should be found in storybooks so they can become the foundation of systems thinking lessons in early childhood education. To that end a systems thinking assessment tool was created to score the systems thinking concepts in children’s storybooks.
• Sometimes these stories are difficult to find at a given grade level.   Sometimes teachers have written children’s stories to support this work in their classes.  We have attached one such story written by a preschool teacher in Turkey, with the author’s permission.  (Note: the attachment is only the text of the story and does not contain the beautiful illustrations that were done to support the story.) As part of this SIG meeting we would like to take you through the process of scoring this story.  Please read the story (English version) before attending the SIG meeting.  Then you will be able to download the assessment sheet during the meeting and we will go to work.
  • Systems Thinking Assessment Tool for Storybooks
• After we do this activity we will identify a URL that will allow you to upload (in English) your own assessments for other children’s stories you may use with your children or students, so we can collect a list of stories (and their ST strength) to help other teachers who want to bring ST into their classes (or help parents who want to introduce ST concepts to their young children).  The stories can be at any level of pre-college education.

 Here are some other topics we will discuss during the SIG meeting in February;

• Advertising the great webinar we are planning for March.  We will have 3 speakers talking about an overview strategy they used to start the process of infusing ST in pre-college education in Turkey.
• Selecting the 2-3 major goals we want to focus on for 2022 for our Pre-college SIG.
• (If time)Setting up a mentoring program for pre-college teachers who want to start using ST/SD in their classes.  More details in the April SIG meeting.

Repeat Meeting / Tuesday, March 1, 2022 12.30 noon (Singapore Time), Click here to watch meeting recording!

Thursday , December 16, 2021 / Click here to watch the meeting recordings!

Agenda:

• A webinar with 3 presenters (45 minutes):
  • Sebnem Feriver talking about her research using systems thinking with pre-school children.
  • Özgün Çetinkaya talking about using systems thinking with primary school children.
  • Sena Yildiz Degirmenci and Görkem Girgin talking about using systems thinking and system dynamics modeling with middle school children.
• The formal SIG meeting (at most 45 minutes), follows the webinar:
  • Conversations with invited researchers who have published articles on using ST/SD in pre-college education.
  • Presentation by Alan Ticotsky (author of The Shape of Change) on his new environmental science book for middle/high school.  Fresh off the press:  “Now What? A Call to Action – Environmental Systems Lessons for Upcoming Generations,” in collaboration with the Creative Learning Exchange.
  • Discussion about new focus areas for submitting papers for the ISDC for each thread.  We will discuss the focus areas for the Learning and Teaching thread.
  • (if time) an update on systems thinking assessment questions.
  • Other topics of interest from the participants.

Thursday , October 28, 2021 2.00-3.00 pm (Eastern Time US) – Click here to watch the meeting recording!

Agenda:

• Identifying potential dates (and times) for Precollege SIG meetings this academic year: (December 16, 2021, February 24, 2022, April 2-3, 2022, May 26, 2022, July-ISDC?)
  
• Presentation (15 minutes): ST/SD lesson in science for students ages 12-14 from a teacher in Meltem’s school in Turkey.
  Please let us know if you would like to make a precollege ST/SD lesson presentation at a future meeting.
  
• Identifying researchers and research articles in the area of ST/SD in precollege education (Emre Göktepe – Özgün Kurt Çetinkaya)
  A link to hundreds of relevant articles in ST/SD and education, along with another link of authors of those articles and either their website or email contact information will be provided during the Precollege SIG meeting

   

  •  Bibliography List for researchers in the area of ST/SD in precollege education 
  • Please fill this form if you can not find your article, monograph, report, chapter or dissertation in the list above
• The SDS Precollege SIG webpage will be under construction for the next few months. Many exciting changes will be made, with resources and important links. The work is being done by Özgün and we are very lucky to have her innovative ideas for the webpage.
  https://systemdynamics.org/special-interest-groups/pre-college-education-sig/
  
• Discussion on other relevant topics related to the use of ST/SD in Precollege education.

Thursday , August 19 2021 1.00-2.00 pm EDT – Click here to watch the meeting recording!

Agenda:

•  Introduction of new associates who will help lead the planning and discussion of the SDS Precollege SIG. All of our new associates are from Turkey. We are so lucky to have their experience and help.
  •  Meltem C. Alibeyoglu –after working 5 years as an academic coordinator, now working in the same school as R&D Coordinator in middle & secondary school and Nilay Yilmaz storybook author, holding PhD on Turkish and children’s literature. She will collaborate on determining the SIG agenda and planning for future meetings and setting up an SDS Precollege SIG Forum to promote online discussion.
  •  Sebnem F.Gezer – researcher, holding PhD in early childhood education (Title of her thesis: Systems Thinking Skills of Preschool Children in Early Childhood Education Contexts of Turkey and Germany) and Özgün Cetinkaya Kurt – classroom teacher, hoping to pursue a PhD in systems thinking in elementary education. She will be maintaining the ST/SD in Precollege Education practitioners database; maintaining the SDS Precollege SIG webpage.
  •  Göksen Kizilkaya – English language teacher in Turkey.
  • She is translating 100 systems thinking assessment questions the Turkish ST/SD educators have created over the past 5 years to English and submitting them to the ST/SD Assessment Database.
•  Current and planned activities for the SDS Precollege SIG for 2021
  • Meetings – every other month, starting in August
  • Continue to collect ST/SD assessment questions to add to the database
  • Submit questions at: https://forms.gle/6hhP2csJky8fexTRA
  • Update the SDS Precollege SIG webpage and forum – (Şebnem and Özgün)
  • Set up a convenient forum for precollege ST/SD discussions – (Özgün)
  • Maybe use the CLE listserv? Or do we want to use Slack?
  • At least one 15 minute video presentation every SIG meeting by educators who use ST/SD in their precollege classes – different levels (early childhood, primary, middle school, secondary school). Please let us know if you want to present at one of the SIG meetings.
  • Note: Özgün is preparing a presentation and handout in English for August meeting
  • Identifying academicians working in ST/SD precollege education (Emre Göktepe) We will focus on this for our next SIG meeting and have a significant list of articles for you.
  • Update and maintain a database of educators using ST/SD in precollege, globally (Sebnem and Özgün)
    • PLEASE let us know of names who should be added to the list. Please make sure the person you suggest is OK with us knowing his/her name. That person can use the link below to submit his/her name and information for our database, or you can give us his/her contact information and we will contact them for permission.
    • Google form was created – Link is https://forms.gle/8WKdjKT4aZrxRAWw9
    • We will request information from SDS Chapters regarding any ST/SD work being done in precollege
  • Find contacts in International Baccalaureate (IB) schools (Özgün) Information about potential of influence of ST/SD in IB schools will be discussed in our.