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Activity: Just a glass of water
| Purpose: | To illustrate what a system is and how systems thinking works |
| Participants: | 4 to 20 or more |
| Time: | 20-30 min. |
| Materials: | A glass Water Can or bottle Flip chart Marker pens |
| Process: | 1. Start by saying that this session will begin with an experiment and that one participant is needed as a volunteer. Arrange the set up of the experiment on a table that is visible for everyone in the group. 2. Explain to the volunteer what he/she should do – fill the glass of water up to a mark that you draw around the glass with a pen. Seems like a very easy task! To the surprise of the group, ask the participant to do that with his/her eyes closed. Ask the other participants to watch carefully what is happening. 3. Start the experiment. The volunteer will fill the glass but of course miss the mark. Ask participants why he/she missed it. Their answer will obviously be: because he/she could not see what he/she was doing. Empty the glass and ask the volunteer to repeat the experiment, but this time with open eyes. Now he/she will not miss the mark. 4. Explain to participants that what they have just seen was a simple example of a system. Write a definition of system on the flipchart [For instance: “A system is a group of interacting, interrelated, and interdependent components that form a complex and unified whole.” (“What is Systems Thinking” www.thesystemsthinker.com/systemsthinkinglearn.html)] 5. Ask participants how they can apply this definition to what they have just seen. The system’s components would be: the volunteer, the glass, the can, the water in the can. Explain that from a systems thinking perspective, it is not possible to understand what was happened by focusing on the parts, it is the interactions between them that is vital. The interactions are that water is poured and accumulates in the glass, that the volunteer needs his eyes and brain in order to hit the mark in the glass (feedback). |
| Note: | |
| Handout(s): | |
| Source(s): | Inspired by Richmond, Barry, Systems Dynamics/Systems Thinking: Let’s Just Get on With It, delivered at the 1994 International Systems Dynamics Conference in Sterling, Scotland. <http://www.iseesystems.com/resources/Articles/SDSTletsjustgetonwithit.pdf> (accessed 13 August 2009) |
chachabooth |
Latest page update: made by chachabooth
, Aug 20 2009, 7:51 AM EDT
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Edited by chachabooth
360 words added 3 words deleted view changes - complete history) |
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