Making Connections

Sarah Boyar accepts Scholarship Award from Joanne Egner

The Barry Richmond Scholarship Award was established in 2007 by isee systems to honor and continue the legacy of its founder, Barry Richmond.  Barry was devoted to helping others become better systems citizens.  Systems citizens are members of a global community that strive to understand the complexities of today’s world and have the informed capacity to make a positive difference.  It was Barry’s mission to make systems thinking and system dynamics accessible to people of all ages, and in all fields.  The award is presented annually at the System Dynamics Society Conference to an individual whose work demonstrates a desire to expand the field of systems thinking or to apply it to current social issues.

Through most of his career, Barry focused on education as the key to spreading systems thinking.  As a teacher and a mentor he dedicated much of his time to developing tools and methodologies for teaching systems thinking.  With this in mind, it was a great pleasure to present this year’s award to Sarah Boyar, a recent graduate of the Masters Program in System Dynamics at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI).

Sarah Boyar and Karim Chichakly enjoy the conference banquet

Sarah presented a portfolio of her work to the scholarship committee.  In particular, an essay about her teaching philosophy resonated with us.  Sarah wrote this piece while taking a seminar in college teaching in order to fulfill her Real World Dynamics course requirement at WPI.  Since she already had plenty of experience as a consultant applying system dynamics to real world situations, Sarah managed to convince the WPI powers-that-be that an essential real world manifestation of system dynamics is the way that it is taught.  This is something Barry would have encouraged and been excited about.

Her essay titled Beliefs About Teaching and Learning begins as follows:

I teach System Dynamics. While I want my students to have some knowledge of system dynamics, most of all I want them to be excited and stimulated by it. I also want them to find it beautiful: I want to teach in such a way that my students find some aspect of beauty in the work, whether it’s through the visual arcs in the model interface, or the precision of algebra in the way we write statements, or the way that system dynamics can ameliorate a social ill that concerns them. I want my students to somehow feel a sense of peace and beauty derived from some aspect of the knowledge I am teaching.

Among Sarah’s aspirations is the desire to teach system dynamics to professionals in other fields, namely lawyers (potential judges) and medical doctors.  Incorporating a systems perspective within both the judicial system and in healthcare could certainly make a positive difference for us all.  Good luck and congratulations Sarah!

Connecting at the welcome reception

Earlier this month, we had the pleasure of hosting the 2010 isee User Conference in Providence, Rhode Island. During this amazing gathering of isee customers, partners, friends, and iThink/STELLA enthusiasts, we learned about the important work that is being done applying Systems Thinking to solve real-world problems, shared ideas, and made connections with one another.

For two and a half days, I saw participants immersed in keynote presentations, breakout sessions, and hands-on workshops.  As important, however, were the less structured round table discussions, poster presentations, and social activities.  Everywhere I looked, folks were engaged in conversation and connecting with one another.  Even better, I knew that many of those connections would continue to be fostered and developed well after the conference was over.

Presentations and models

Conference presentations and models are now available on the isee systems web site.  Please download and share these materials with your colleagues and friends. You’ll get a glimpse into the wide range of fields where Systems Thinking is being used to better understand the interconnections of dynamic systems including business, healthcare, education, energy, and the environment.  You can also download and listen to audio recordings of the keynote presentations:

• Business Tsunami: Surviving Disruptive Change in a Networked World
  by Henk Akkermans
• Education for an Interdependent World: Developing Systems Citizens
  by Peter Senge
• Learning and Teaching System Dynamics Modeling: A 20 Year Journey
  by Diana Fisher
• Generating Understanding of Social, Economic and Climate Dynamics in Interaction
  by Matthias Ruth
• The Youth Violence Systems Project
  by Steve Peterson and Paul Bothwell

A Conference Highlight

Steve Peterson describes the modeling process

One of the highlights of the conference for me was listening to the story that Steve Peterson and Paul Bothwell told about using Systems Thinking and dynamic modeling to help communities in high-violence Boston neighborhoods.

In their work with the Youth Violence Systems Project, there were two objectives:

• Improve understanding of community-based violence in Boston
• Help communities strategize and achieve sustained reductions in violence

What made this project different from other attempts to research and solve the youth violence problem in Boston was that it engaged “the community” in the development of the model.  From the get go, they included youth in the modeling process.  Gang members, in particular, turned out to be an important missing link to understanding violence and the dynamic system behavior.  Both Steve and Paul described some of the harsher realities of working with young people whose family members and friends were victims of violence.  The modeling process actually helped community members to articulate the “slippery slope dynamics” that move youth through the different stocks to gang involvement.  If you have a chance, I highly recommend listening to the audio recording!

Staying Connected

Participants engaged in round table discussions

Having time to interact with other participants was an important part of the conference experience.  It was wonderful to see the excitement and energy that is created when Systems Thinkers have an opportunity to connect with one another.  The cross fertilization that occurs so naturally between field experts, modelers, and educators was inspiring.

Please stay connected and let us know if there are other ways in which we can foster our growing community of STELLA and iThink modelers!

isee systems is proud to have sponsored the 28th International System Dynamics Conference held in Seoul, Korea last month.  We especially enjoyed supporting the conference again this year through the Barry Richmond Scholarship Award.   The scholarship was established in 2007 to honor and continue the legacy of our company founder, Barry Richmond.  Barry was devoted to helping others become better “Systems Citizens”.  It was his mission to make Systems Thinking and System Dynamics accessible to people of all ages and in all fields.

I first met Barry 20 years ago, when I had to trudge through the snow to get to his small wooden office.  I was building a discrete event model using STELLA and I wanted him to make some changes to the software so I didn’t have these “egg timer“ structures everywhere.  Barry was horrified with what I had done with his software and said words to the effect that it’s not meant for that, it was created to spread the gospel of System Dynamics.  Despite the fact that I was a civil engineer, he encouraged me to take a look at SD.  Such was his passion and conviction that 20 years later I’m still attending this conference.”

Tony Phuah accepts Scholarship Award from Mark Heffernan

Through most of his career Barry saw education as the key to spreading Systems Thinking.  As a teacher and a mentor, he dedicated much of his time to developing tools and methodologies for learning.  It is fitting therefore that this year’s award was presented to Tony Phuah, a Master’s student in System Dynamics at the University of Bergen.

Tony’s work includes an experimental study that explores the question: How can we improve people’s understanding of basic stock and flow behavior?  His experiment uses two different methods for teaching stock and flow behavior — the standard method (using graphical integration) and a method he calls “running total”.  Tony presented his paper at a parallel session during the conference and it can be downloaded by clicking here.  Although the results of his study favor traditional methods for teaching stock and flow behavior, we all should be encouraged by the work being done to try to improve Systems Thinking education and communication.  In Tony’s own words:

Speeding up ‘Systems Thinkers beget more Systems Thinkers’ growth will make us one step closer to Barry Richmond’s vision of a systems citizen world.”

Congratulations Tony and thank you Mark for helping us to celebrate Barry’s passion!

Applications for the 2011 Barry Richmond Scholarship Award will be available on the isee systems and System Dynamics Society web sites.  Check those sites for more information.

Barry Richmond was the founder of isee systems and pioneer in the field of systems thinking.  When his life was cut short by a sudden fatal heart attack, Barry was in the prime of his career and the systems thinking community experienced a collective sense of loss and grief.

Barry was fully engaged in bringing systems thinking to everyone.  He saw how this powerful way of thinking could help people to better understand society’s most pressing issues and make the world a better place.  Barry saw K-12 education as one of the keys to creating a better world.  He spoke often about educating young people to become ”systems citizens” and preparing students for the complex problems they would have to face.  Much of his time was devoted to training teachers to incorporate systems thinking into curricula and pedagogy.

A couple of years ago, Barry’s daughter, Joy Richmond, began spearheading an effort to create a book in honor of her father.  Joy invited a group of us together to talk about some ideas for the book and come up with a plan to make it happen. The first idea we discussed was writing the book that Barry himself had intended to write.  Barry left plenty of notes and even had a working title for a book about systems thinking called Traces.   We all agreed that it would be much too daunting to try to write a book for Barry, so we decided to have a book written in tribute to Barry by friends and colleagues who share his passion for systems thinking.

Steve Peterson, Corey Peck and Khalid Saeed were all part of that original discussion and eager to contribute by writing a chapter.  Each had a story to tell about using Systems Thinking in their work and why it is so important in an increasingly interdependent world.  What better way to honor Barry than writing a book that helped get the word out about systems thinking!

Shaping the Book

Lees Stuntz, Executive Director of the Creative Learning Exchange, was also in on the discussion and excited about asking educators influenced by Barry to contribute their stories. Before we invited other authors however, we wanted to provide some guidelines that would tie the book together and give it a more meaningful context.  I think it was Steve who came up with the idea to use the critical thinking skills first outlined in an article Barry wrote for the System Dynamics Review titled “Systems Thinking: Critical Thinking Skills for the 1990s and Beyond”.   We agreed the systems thinking skills would provide a good foundation for the book and each author could then choose a few of the thinking skills to emphasize when telling their story.

Countless hours of writing, editing, and designing later, Tracing Connections: Voices of Systems Thinkers was born.  Published in partnership with the Creative Learning Exchange, proceeds from the book will fund scholarships that offer learning opportunities for educators to use systems thinking and system dynamics in K-12 education.  The response so far has been excellent and we are pleased to be funding scholarships to help educators attend the ST/DM Conference later this month.

A Chapter for Everyone

What is especially nice about the book, is that you don’t need to read each chapter in sequence.  Since the authors’ experiences range from education and research to business and public policy, there’s sure to be a chapter for everyone.  Click on the link below to view the chapter by Frank Draper titled “Teaching by Wondering Around: Learning About the World Naturally”.  Frank tells a wonderful story about how Systems Thinking has transformed the way he teaches science to high school students.  After reading it, you’re going to wish you could enroll in one of Frank’s field science classes at Catalina Foothills school district in Tuscon, Arizona.

Teaching by Wondering Around by Frank Draper

Animal Temperature Model

Table of Contents with full list of chapter titles and authors

For more information or to order a copy of Tracing Connections, visit http://www.iseesystems.com/tc

In 2009, the isee systems blog, “Making Connections” was created as a forum for sharing ideas and experiences with the Systems Thinking community. Blog topics cover subjects ranging from a systems perspective of current news events to modeling tips for advanced STELLA and iThink users.

As the first anniversary of the isee Blog approaches, we thought it would be interesting for folks to see the list of our most popular blog posts.

Top Ten Posts of 2009

1. Modeling H1N1 Flu Outbreak
2. Modeling Customers Switching Between Brands
3. Modeling a Watershed with Arrays
4. Matrix Arithmetic
5. Spatial Modeling with isee Spatial Map
6. “Thinking in Systems” book inspires online course
7. Physics Textbook 2.0
8. Insight-based Model Investigates the Housing Crisis
9. Building a Health Care Model Hierarchically
10. C02 in the Atmosphere Behaves Like a Bathtub

Last Friday we hosted the first of a four-part web seminar series titled Modeling for Environmental Sustainability.  This first session was about how you can use simple bathtub dynamics to understand climate change.

In the session, Chris Soderquist demonstrates how you can use embeddable simulations to help raise awareness and understanding about climate change.  Using simple bathtub dynamics, the “C02 Dynamic Indicator” simulation lets anyone experiment with the current set of policy proposals for capping and reducing emissions.

The live session was recorded and is now posted on our website, along with two embedded simulations that you can run online.  All of the session materials are open source and we encourage you to link, embed and share them with others.

Marcus Robinson & James Ranney accept 2009 Barry Richmond Scholarship Award

The Barry Richmond Scholarship Award was established in 2007 by isee systems to honor and continue the legacy of our founder, Barry Richmond.  Barry was devoted to helping others become better “Systems Citizens”.  It was his mission to make Systems Thinking and System Dynamics accessible to people of all ages and in all fields.

The award is presented annually at the International System Dynamics Conference to an individual whose work demonstrates a desire to expand the field or to apply it to current social issues.

Barry had a particular passion for expanding the field into K-12 education.  He worked closely with teachers and young people at all levels to incorporate Systems Thinking tools and methodologies into the classroom.  With this in mind, it was a great pleasure to present this year’s award to Marcus Robinson and James Ranney, two students from Wilson High School in Portland, Oregon.

Marcus Robinson presents at SD Conference

The scholarship committee was very impressed by the quality of the models and technical papers that these students submitted.   Both high school seniors were enrolled in Diana Fisher’s modeling class this past year.  For their final project assignment, they were asked to explore a topic of their own choosing.

Inspired by a video of the PBS NOVA program “Dimming the Sun”, Marcus chose to create a model that would help to answer the question “How Much do Carbon Emissions Need to be Reduced in Order to Stop Global Warming?” To download Marcus’ paper, click here.

After a run-in with a large frog at his summer camp, James was interested in answering “What is the Impact of Introducing an Invasive Species into an Ecosystem?” – in this case, the bullfrog into the Pacific Northwest. To download James’ paper, click here.

James Ranney presents during K-12 poster session

Both students presented their work at a parallel session during the conference and again at a special K-12 poster session.  What a delight it was to see how empowering modeling real-world issues is for young people and the enthusiasm they share for their work.

Thank you to the society for making a special effort to serve the K-12 community and provide opportunities for partnership.  Congratulations Marcus and James, Barry would be very proud!

Applications for the 2010 Barry Richmond Scholarship Award will be available on the isee systems and System Dynamics Society web sites. Check those sites for more information.

We’re looking forward to connecting with folks at the 27th Annual International System Dynamics Conference in Albuquerque next week.   Karim Chichakly, Jeremy Merritt and I will be there to share the latest news, listen to your stories, and answer any questions you might have.

We hope to see you at as many of the following isee sponsored events as your schedule allows:

Monday, July 27th

Tuesday, July 28th

Wednesday, July 29th

Thursday, July 30th

See you in Albuquerque!