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Helpful prior learning and learning objectives
Helpful prior learning and learning objectives
Helpful prior learning:
Section 1.1.1 The economy and you which explains what an economy is and how it is relevant to students’ lives
Learning objectives:
describe systems in terms of parts, relationships, and function, emergence and boundaries
explain why systems thinking is important for addressing complex problems
The Tales of the Dervishes is a Sufi fable that helps us see why thinking about systems is so important.
Beyond Ghor there was a city. All its inhabitants were blind. A king with his entourage arrived nearby; he brought his army and camped in the desert. He had a mighty elephant, which he used in attack and to increase the people’s awe.
The populace became anxious to see the elephant, and some sightless from among this blind community ran like fools to find it.
As they did not even know the form or shape of the elephant, they groped sightlessly, gathering information by touching some part of it. Each thought that he knew something, because he could feel a part.
Figure 1. Can you possibly understand what an elephant is just by feeling its trunk?
(Credit: Andrew Shiva, CC BY-SA 4.0)
When they returned to their fellow-citizens, eager groups clustered around them. Each of these was anxious, misguidedly, to learn the truth from those who were themselves astray.
They asked about the form, the shape of the elephant, and listened to all that they were told.
The man whose hand had reached an ear was asked about the elephant’s nature. He said: ‘It is a large, rough thing, wide and broad, like a rug.’
And the one who had felt the trunk said: ‘I have the real facts about it. It is like a straight and hollow pipe, awful and destructive.’
The one who had felt its feet and legs said: ‘It is mighty and firm, like a pillar.’
Each had felt one part out of many. Each had perceived it wrongly….
What’s the point of the story?
What is a system?
What is a system?
A system is made up of three things: parts, relationships, and a function or purpose. For example, in a forest, the parts include plants, animals, and microorganisms. The relationships are how these living things interact, such as plants providing food for animals. The function of the system is to support life by cycling energy and nutrients.
You can also see systems in your everyday life. A school is a system. For example, some parts include the people (students, teachers, staff), the building, and other elements of the school. The relationships include teaching, learning, and friendships. The purpose is to share knowledge and build skills. Systems are everywhere in your life—from bus routes in a city to your body’s circulatory system (Figure 2).
Figure 2. The circulatory system has parts, relationships and a function. What are they?
(Credit: Cancer Research UK, CC BY-SA 4.0)
But systems don’t stand alone. They are part of and connected to other systems. For example, the circulatory system is part of the human body. The human body is part of the biosphere, which includes all living things on Earth. These interdependent systems of systems are called complex systems.
Complex systems also show emergence, which means new characteristics appear when system parts interact. For example, think of a cake. Its taste and texture emerge from the interaction of ingredients like flour, eggs, and sugar—ingredients that don’t taste like cake on their own. These emergent characteristics are often not planned and may be different from the system’s function.
Emergence can be positive or negative. A healthy ecosystem is a positive example of emergence, where the size of populations is balanced with available energy and resources. On the other hand, pollution could emerge from a factory, even if the factory system’s purpose is to produce goods. Another example of emergence is a school’s culture, which develops from the relationships between people and can be supportive and inclusive, or stressful and competitive.
Where do systems begin and end?
Where do systems begin and end?
Every system has boundaries. System boundaries separate what is inside the system from what is outside (Figure 3). Sometimes, the system boundary is physical, like a fence around a farm. Other times, it’s imaginary, drawn by people to focus on a specific part of a system. For example, a classroom is part of a school system. But when we think about seating arrangements, it makes sense to draw a boundary around a single classroom so we focus our attention there.
Defining the boundary of a system is important because it affects what we focus on. For example, we could study a single tree and its parts, the relationships between a tree and the other living organisms in the forest biome, or how the entire forest interacts with the atmosphere. Choosing the right boundary helps us see the system and its parts clearly without being overwhelmed or missing important details.
Figure 3. A system boundary separates the system from its external environment. What parts and relationships should be included in the system or left out?
When people have different understandings of a system’s boundaries, it can lead to disagreements. For example, if two people study a city’s transport system, but one only focuses on buses while the other looks at buses, trains, and bicycles, they might come to different conclusions. Taking the time to clarify what a system is and is not is important for having productive discussions about current systems and how they might be changed.
What’s the difference between an open and closed system?
What’s the difference between an open and closed system?
Physical systems can interact with their surroundings in different ways:
open system: exchanges energy, matter, and sometimes information with its environment. For example, a forest takes in sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide, and gives out oxygen and heat;
closed system: exchanges energy, but not matter. Earth is an example of a mostly closed system. It absorbs sunlight and releases heat, but doesn’t gain or lose significant amounts of matter;
isolated system: exchanges neither energy, nor matter with its environment. We do not have any proven examples of completely isolated systems, though some scientists believe that the universe might be an isolated system.
Many economic models assume the economy is an isolated system disconnected from nature (Section 1.1.2). This view ignores the materials and energy the economy needs, as well as the waste it produces. This narrow focus has led people to make economic decisions that cause severe ecological damage and social problems.
Why is systems thinking important?
Why is systems thinking important?
Systems thinking helps us solve problems by showing how different parts of a system interact. For example, when planning a school event, you consider the people attending, the space, and the equipment. Seeing the whole picture helps you avoid problems and make better decisions.
It also helps us understand big issues like climate change and economic inequality. These cannot be solved by focusing on single parts. Reducing car emissions helps, but climate change also involves energy, deforestation, and consumption. Higher wages can reduce inequality, but without fair access to education, healthcare, and housing, the gap remains. Real change requires seeing connections and acting on them together.
Understanding systems also means recognising our own mental models—the ideas and assumptions that shape how we see the world. If we do not question them, we may miss key connections. Systems thinking helps us reflect, consider different perspectives, and improve our understanding.
The next Section S.2, explores systems thinking in more detail.
Figure 4. Systems thinking helps us understand and address complex issues like climate change and economic inequality. A photograph of the Drang-Drung glacier in India (left) and a person living on the street (right).
(Credit: Mrinal, licensed from Adobe Stock and Jiarong Deng, Pexels license)
Activity S.1
Activity S.1
Concept: Systems
Skills: Thinking skills (transfer)
Time: 30 minutes
Type: Pairs or group
Option 1: Identifying systems in your life
Brainstorm: In pairs or groups, list systems you encounter in your daily life. Examples could include a school, a sports team, a mobile phone, a local park, their desk, a pen—the possibilities are endless.
Choose a system: As a group, pick one system from your list to explore in more detail.
Describe the system: Write down the system's parts, the relationships between them, and its purpose.
Define the boundary: Draw a simple diagram of the system and its boundary. Decide what is inside and outside the system. Discuss why you chose this boundary and how changing it might affect your understanding of the system.
Share and reflect: Present your diagram to the class or another group and explain your reasoning.
Alternatively, a teacher or student could choose one system for an entire class to focus on, in groups. This can show you how different perspectives lead to different mental models of a system, how its parts, relationships, and purpose are defined by an individual or the group. Students can then compare how they analysed the system with others to see how perspectives differ.
Option 2: The embedded economy model
Consider the embedded economy model below from Section 1.1.2. What does this model tell you (or not tell you) about:
the parts of the economy
the relationships between those parts of the economy
the purpose of the economy
emergence
Figure 5. The commons in the embedded economy
(Credit: Raworth and Mihotich CC-BY-SA 4.0)
Additional questions to think about / discuss:
This section showed you that systems are often embedded within or connected to other systems. Where or how do we see the idea of systems of systems (complex systems) in the embedded economy model?
Checking for understanding
Checking for understanding
Further exploration
Further exploration
Waters Center for Systems Thinking - The website of a nonprofit organisation that provides resources and training for systems thinking in education and leadership. Tools and materials include explanations of stocks and flows, practical classroom activities, and interactive learning strategies. Habits of a systems thinker is a set of cards that explain some important aspects of systems thinking. Difficulty level: medium.
Get Savvy With Systems - 4/7 Doughnut Economics - This video from the Doughnut Economics Action Lab challenges urges economics to take a systems-thinking approach that embraces complexity, and recognises the importance of feedback, and tipping points. Instead of engineers pulling levers, 21st-century economists must be gardeners, shaping an ever-evolving economy. Difficulty level: easy.
Sources
Sources
Cabrera, D., & Cabrera, L. (2018). Systems thinking made simple: New hope for solving wicked problems (2nd ed.). Odyssean Press.
Meadows, D. H. (2008). Thinking in systems: A primer. White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green Publishing.
Raworth, K. (2017). Doughnut economics: seven ways to think like a 21st century economist. London: Penguin Random House.
Shah, I. (1970). Tales of the dervishes: Teaching stories of the Sufi masters over the past thousand years. London: Octagon Press. Retrieved from https://idriesshahfoundation.org/books/tales-of-the-dervishes/
Terminology (in order of appearance)
Terminology (in order of appearance)
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