Systems Literacy

Systems Literacy is a project that began in 2008 after we had completed the ocean literacy, earth science literacy, atmospheric science literacy, energy literacy  and climate literacy work.

 

See https://www.systemsliteracy.org for more information

 

 

This part of the project is to address systems literacy for the US Next Generation Science Standards, and specifically to build upon the Cross Cutting Concepts. The NGSS is comprised of three components, Disciplinary Core Ideas, Science and Engineering Practices, and Cross Cutting Concepts.

 

The cross cutting concepts are:

1. Patterns. Observed patterns of forms and events guide organization and classification, and they prompt questions about relationships and the factors that influence them.

2. Cause and effect: Mechanism and explanation. Events have causes, sometimes simple, sometimes multifaceted. A major activity of science is investigating and explaining causal relationships and the mechanisms by which they are mediated. Such mechanisms can then be tested across given contexts and used to predict and explain events in new contexts.

3. Scale, proportion, and quantity. In considering phenomena, it is critical to recognize what is relevant at different measures of size, time, and energy and to recognize how changes in scale, proportion, or quantity affect a system’s structure or performance.

4. Systems and system models. Defining the system under study—specifying its boundaries and making explicit a model of that system—provides tools for understanding and testing ideas that are applicable throughout science and engineering.

5. Energy and matter: Flows, cycles, and conservation. Tracking fluxes of energy and matter into, out of, and within systems helps one understand the systems’ possibilities and limitations.

6. Structure and function. The way in which an object or living thing is shaped and its substructure determine many of its properties and functions.

7. Stability and change. For natural and built systems alike, conditions of stability and determinants of rates of change or evolution of a system are critical elements of study.

 

We are proposing taking a systems science approach. This will build upon the work of Professor Len Troncale. He has created Systems Process theory (SPT). In the later 1990's he received an NSF grant to create and Integrated Science, General Education course for undergraduates. We believe SPT and the ISGE course can be used as a foundation for further development of the Cross Cutting Concepts.

 

SPT describes isomorphies. A set of some of them are:

 

1. Hierarchies, or more accurately Heteropoesis

2. Feedback

3. Cycles

4. Self Organization

5. Networks

6. Flows

7. Synergy

8. Fractals

9. Duality and Symmetry

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