SYSTEMS THINKING IN OCEANOGRAPHY COURSES (Invited Presentation)

Oceans are interconnected. Cold water sinks near the poles and hundreds of years later emerges at the surface near the equator. Tuna migrate across the Pacific and back for food and reproduction. Spilled oil is carried along currents from the Gulf of Mexico to the Atlantic. A tsunami travels from one side of the Indian Ocean to the other, flooding low-lying islands. Oceans also connect humans. For centuries we have traveled on ships. Today our global economy relies on the oceans as transportation corridors for food and other goods. However, the aesthetic, recreational, and economic values we place on the oceans are often in conflict with our dependence on them. We snorkel in coral reefs and find solace walking along a beach, but our burning of fossil fuels is stressing coral growth and causing rising sea levels that erode the shores and our ports.

With all the interconnections between oceans and societies, systems thinking is a natural fit for oceanography courses. Systems thinking helps equip students to address the grand challenges we face -- climate change, disease, poverty, natural disasters, and more -- by helping them establish a framework for evaluating feedback loops, equilibrium, and non-linear relationships between many interacting parts and processes. Oceanography or atmospheric science instructors with little experience in systems thinking can use materials from InTeGrate (e.g.,https://serc.carleton.edu/integrate/teaching_materials/syst_thinking/), which are available online for free, as a way to get started using many ‘fluid’ examples appropriate to their courses. The InTeGrate systems thinking essay and rubric give instructors an effective way to assess students’ skill with the approach. Students learn ways to rigorously incorporate actions, attitudes, and motivations into a study of the complexity of the natural world. Further, if we want our students to be motivated to act, systems thinking is a transferable skill that can be used to help students to connect the cognitive and affective dimensions of learning.