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!

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.

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.