Workshops

World Climate Game (conducted by Bill Grace, University of Western Australia)

The World Climate Game is a role playing game whereby participants take part in mock UN climate change negotiations. It was development by members of the System Dynamics Society. It is unique in that it uses an interactive computer model to rapidly analyse the results of the mock-negotiations during the event. Participants in this workshop will learn about the World Climate Game and take part in a mock UN climate change negotiation.

Participants should bring a laptop computer to the workshop.

SESAMME: An app for Group Model Building (conducted by Russell Richards and Carl Smith, The University of Queensland; and Ninad Jagdish, BTN)

The Socio-Ecological Systems App for Mental Model Elicitation (SESAMME) is an app specifically designed to support group model building. Participants in this workshop will learn how to use SESAMME and apply it to group model building. The app is available for Apple and Android devices (phones and tablets) as well as PCs and Mac computers.

Participants should bring their mobile phone, tablet or laptop computer to the workshop.

UQ Cases: An app for case based teaching using system dynamics (conducted by Russell Richards and Carl Smith, The University of Queensland; and Ninad Jagdish, BTN)

Case-based teaching is now popular in many universities and most people are familiar with Harvard and Ivey cases. What if you could build teaching cases and turn them into interactive games using system dynamic simulations. We have developed an app to do just that. It’s called UQ Cases and is specifically designed to support case-based teaching and blended learning. The app allows students to select from multiple teaching cases that introduce them to particular topics or problems. Each case contains three components: (1) a story that introduces students to a problem using text, graphics and animation, (2) a simulation that allows students to run experiments and test scenarios that try to overcome the problem, and (3) a quiz to reinforce what the students have learnt from the story and the simulation. The app supports both single and multiplayer simulations. The app is available for Apple and Android devices (phones and tablets) as well as PCs and Mac computers.

Participants should bring their mobile phone, tablet or laptop computer to the workshop.

Building the Urban 1 Model - from Causal-loop Diagram to Ready-to-Simulate Stock-and-Flow Model (conducted by Elizabeth Ong, National University of Signapore)

Building a stock-and-flow model, complete with units, values and equations, is one of the more challenging learning milestones for students of System Dynamics. In this workshop, participants will have the opportunity to work in small groups of 3-4 to build the Urban 1 model from scratch. This model, by Alfeld and Graham (Introduction to Urban Dynamics, 1976) depicts in a simple and elegant way the balance and inter-connectedness of the population, housing and business sectors in an urban area. Through this experience, participants will acquire an appreciation of the effectiveness of this learning strategy in developing their own modelling skills, or in the teaching of System Dynamics modelling in an educational institution.

The workshop will include a brief overview of the teaching framework within which this lesson is taught at Residential College 4, National University of Singapore. Specifically, this includes an overview of the modelling concepts and skills that are covered both before and after this lesson.

Participants should bring a laptop computer to the workshop.

Systems Thinking Play Workshop for K-12 Education (conducted by Benjamin Chang-Kwon Chung, System Leadership Institute, Korea)

There are many tools available for educators to teach Systems Thinking and System Dynamics to pre-college students, from kindergarten to high school. Among these tools are kinesthetic play games. In Korea, there has been a remarkable achievement in Systems Thinking and System Dynamics education using these simple games. The games cover stocks and flows, feedback, delay, causal relationships, complexity and mental models.

This workshop will provide hands-on experience in Systems Thinking and System Dynamics kinesthetic play games.