1. DEXTER CHAPIN // ISDC 2011 Teaching Sustainable Systems

2. efficacyincreasinghistoricity

3. Our students will live well into the 21 st century; a century likely to be dominated by the three facets of sustainability: Ecology Economy Equity Teaching sustainability has to be about teaching students how to effectively intervene in complex systems to bring about change. Teaching Sustainable Systems

4. This teacher’s perspective is that teaching ST/ SD will increase a student’s historicity. his to ric i ty noun \,his-tə-`ri-sə-tē\ The ability to effectively intervene to benefit one’s own, or another’s, life. Three mutually causal elements: Technical knowledge (how to) Social, or fiscal, capital (to underwrite) Worldview (to give meaning to) Teaching Sustainable Systems

5. How does ST/SD contribute to increased historicity? It’s all about leverage points. It’s All One Thing (Tim Joy) The Mind in Nature (Gregory Bateson) Ashby’s Law (Ross Ashby) Teaching Sustainable Systems

6. No system is an island. Every natural system is nested in a larger system and contains subsystems containing semi-autonomous agents. All system outputs are inputs for another system Where you draw the system boundary is a function of the question, not the system. Expectation: Relationships rather than content will define the system. Expectation: Some relationships provide leverage for change Teaching Sustainable Systems

7. Feedback is integral to a system. There is mutual causality between the system and its subsystems. Systems can learn and respond to their own performance to maintain homeostasis or generate change. Expectation: Viable systems capture, process, and respond to information. Expectation: Systems must be open to information, and/or energy, and maybe material. Teaching Sustainable Systems

8. The whole is more than the sum of parts. The system’s emergent properties, including output, are allowed but not determined by any one subsystem or agent. Expectation: Merely listing the parts will never be a sufficient explanation; the world is a wildly surprising place. Teaching Sustainable Systems

9. Introducing Model Building Spend lots of time on what a stock is (or can be). Link generic structures (linear and exponential growth & decay, convergent, etc.) to specific behaviors over time. Spend time on selecting and describing first stock and describing behavior over time. Teaching Sustainable Systems

10. Examples of Introductory Models Overshoot, tragedy of the commons model Overshoot FishbanksNsa, a generic Fish-Banks model with policy optionsFishbanksNsa, Teaching Sustainable Systems

11. efficacyincreasinghistoricity