Systems Thinking & Sustainability Solutions with CS Prof. Steve Easterbrook

*For University of Toronto Students* Please register with your utoronto email.

Join the Sustainability Office and Professor Steve Easterbrook from the Computer Science department on a journey to understanding Systems Thinking and Sustainability Solutions through a hands-on workshop packed full of games, puzzles and story-telling!

This workshop will be filled with hands-on games and activities that create “systems” around you that you will have to try to cope with through strategies and role-playing. These games will shine a new light on how you view systems around you and help you develop a mental toolkit for analyzing complex global issues such as sustainability.

Systems Thinking is an important mental toolkit that applies to all fields of study, including physics, engineering, ecology, political science, and computer science. We encourage students from all disciplines to participate in the workshop.

Steve Easterbrook is a professor of Computer Science at U of T, and a member of the School of Environment, and the Centre for Global Change Science. He received his Ph.D. (1991) in Computing from Imperial College in London (UK), and joined the faculty at the School of Cognitive and Computing Science, University of Sussex. From 1995-99, he was lead scientist at NASA’s Independent Verification and Validation (IV&V) Facility in West Virginia, where he investigated software verification on the Space Shuttle Flight Software, the International Space Station, and the Earth Observation System. He moved to the University of Toronto in 1999. His research is in climate and sustainability informatics. He studies how climate scientists develop computational models to improve their understanding of earth systems and climate change, and how that knowledge is shared with other communities. He is also exploring the role of digital technology in supporting (or hindering!) the transition to a sustainable society. He is the general chair of the upcoming conference on Information and Communication Technologies for Sustainability (ICT4S 2018), at Hart House in May 2018.

What is Systems Thinking?

Systems Thinking is a set of skills for understanding why complex systems behave in the way that they do, sometimes in completely unpredictable ways. It begins with the insight that we need to shift our perspectives from an individual component to understanding the whole system, such as our eco- and social-systems. Hence, system thinking is an important conceptual toolkit for creating successful approaches to sustainability.

Sounds too abstract? Let’s experience it then!

Steve will take us on a journey into understanding Systems Thinking through a hands-on workshop packed full of games, puzzles and story-telling, which will offer insights into the nature of sustainability in complex inter-dependent systems.

Did you say learning… through games?

This workshop will be filled with hands-on games and activities that create “systems” around you that you will have to try to cope with through role-playing and strategies. These games will shine a new light on how you view systems around you, help you develop a mental toolkit for analyzing complex global issues such as sustainability, and support your future problem-solving skills.