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Session 3. Systems Thinking: How Things Connect
Objective. Use simple systems tools with pupils: draw a cause chain with signs, find a feedback loop, read a stock and flow, and ask what else will change before proposing a fix.
Environmental topics are often taught as lists of causes and effects, and pupils remember the list and miss the connections. Systems thinking gives you three very simple tools: a drawing with arrows, a question about loops, and a question about what else will change. None needs technology. With a pencil and a page, a Grade 5 pupil can show why a street stays littered, and a Grade 10 pupil can question a plan that looks perfect on paper.
Key ideas
From lists to connections
- A system is a set of connected parts that produce a pattern over time. A list of causes tells you what; a drawing of connections tells you how.
- A cause chain uses arrows. A plus sign (+) means more of the first leads to more of the second; a minus sign (-) means more of the first leads to less of the second.
- Start with four elements pupils can name from their own life, such as paper used, paper in the bin, paper bought, cost to the school.
Loops that grow and loops that steady
- In a reinforcing loop, a change feeds itself: on a littered street people drop more litter, so the street gets more littered. It can grow or shrink fast.
- In a balancing loop, a change is pushed back toward a goal: a tap fills a bucket until the level reaches the line, then you close the tap.
- Ask pupils two questions: 'Does this make more of itself?' and 'Does something push it back?' Those two questions find most loops.
Stocks, flows and delays
- A stock is an amount stored: water in a tank, paper in the cupboard. Flows fill it (inflow) or drain it (outflow). The level changes only when flows differ.
- Stocks change slowly. A big lake, an aquifer or a landfill does not recover in a week, so effects of today's choices often appear later.
- Use a bucket with a hole in a lesson: pupils see that adding water faster than it leaks raises the level, and mending the hole can matter as much as adding.
Side effects and good places to act
- Before any fix, ask 'What else will change, and for whom?' Fixes that look obvious in one place can move the problem somewhere else.
- Donella Meadows suggested that some places in a system give more effect for the effort, for example changing information that people see, rules, or goals, rather than only adjusting numbers. Use this as an idea to think with, not a formula.
- Say aloud that a drawing is a simplified map of a real, more complex place. Pupils should check their maps against real measurements.
A reinforcing loop: litter on a street
Draw a map pupils can check
Begin small: four or five elements that pupils can name and observe. Write each on a card, place them on a page and draw arrows with + or - signs. Then read each arrow aloud as a sentence: 'More paper printed leads to more paper in the bin.' If an arrow cannot be read as a sentence, it is probably wrong or unclear.
Close the loop when you can: ask if the last element points back to the first. Finally, ask what pupils could measure to test one arrow. This keeps the map honest and links the lesson to data, so that the picture is a hypothesis to test, not a proof.
Delays, side effects and humility
Many environmental effects arrive late because the stocks involved, such as groundwater, a lake or a landfill, change slowly. When effects appear long after actions, people lose the connection. A bucket with a hole makes the point in two minutes: the level responds slowly to a change in flow.
Before a fix is recommended, ask who else used the thing being saved or removed. Meadows suggests that changing information, rules or goals can matter more than adjusting a number; use that as a prompt to think, not as a formula. Always say that a map is simpler than reality and may be wrong.
Examples from the classroom
A bucket with a hole
Scene. In a Grade 5 class in Tashkent, Dilnoza pours water into a plastic bottle with a small hole near the bottom, held over a basin. Pupils mark the water level every minute. When she pours faster, the level rises; when she stops, it falls. Pupils name the stock (water in the bottle), the inflow and the outflow, then say what could be done to keep the level steady.
Insight. A stock changes only when inflow and outflow differ, and a simple demonstration can show it without any vocabulary.
Winter heating and air
Scene. In Samarkand, Grade 9 pupils draw a chain: colder weather leads to more fuel burned, more fuel burned leads to more smoke, more smoke leads to poorer air. They add a minus arrow from home insulation to fuel burned. Aziz asks what else would change if every home was better insulated, and pupils name lower household costs and fewer days of poor air as things to check with data.
Insight. A chain with signs makes a place to act visible, and 'what else changes?' pushes pupils to think about benefits as well as problems.
Watering the school garden
Scene. Malika's Grade 7 class in Bukhara maps water use in the school garden: water drawn from the tap, water reaching plant roots, water lost to the air, and the caretaker's time. They predict that watering in the cool morning loses less to the air than at midday. For two weeks they water two beds at different times and record how the soil feels and how the plants look.
Insight. A map generates a prediction that pupils can test with a small experiment, which links systems thinking to evidence.
Common pitfalls
- Drawing arrows without + or - signs, so that the map shows connections but not their direction of effect.
- Treating the map as the truth rather than a simplified picture that needs testing.
- Naming a loop but never asking what pupils could measure to check it.
- Proposing a fix without asking what else will change and for whom.
Draw the System
- Open the Activity Kit: Scenario 1 (school paper, for practice) and Scenario 2 (a SAMPLE simplified irrigation model). Each pair needs paper and pens.
- Pairs (10 min): Scenario 1. Draw the cause chain with + and - signs, then find one loop (does it make more of itself, or is it pushed back?).
- Pairs (15 min): Scenario 2. Identify the stock and the flows, draw the chain, then name one side effect of lining the canal and one place where information, a rule or a goal could change the system.
- Groups (10 min): compare maps with another pair. Which arrows do you disagree about, and what measurement would settle it?
- Alone (5 min): write your classroom action task from the Kit.
Your facilitator will guide you through this activity in the session.
Questions to discuss
- Which arrow was hardest to sign, and why?
- What side effect did your pair find that the other pair missed?
- Which topic in your subject could pupils map in 15 minutes?
Reflect
- Which environmental topic in your subject has more than two causes?
- When did a quick fix in your school cause a new problem?
- What would pupils measure to test their own map?
Try it tomorrow
- Ask a pair to draw a four-element chain for a local issue and read each arrow aloud as a sentence.
- Run the bucket-with-a-hole demonstration for 5 minutes in a science or maths lesson.
- After any proposed fix, ask the class: 'What else would change, and who would notice?'
Further reading and links
Draw the connections, sign the arrows, look for loops and always ask what else will change.