This article demonstrates how the system archetype "drifting goals" can be used in the classroom to explore ethical dilemmas. System archetypes provide a framework that shifts the focus from seeing ethical dilemmas as stemming solely from the acts of individuals to exploring the systemic structures that are responsible for generic patterns of…

Discusses conceptual models of thought that have recently emerged to confront the conventional approaches to analysis and solution to complex environmental problems. In addition to a critical attack on the tradition of specialization and reductionism, several models are summarized that originated from ecology, cybernetics, and system theory. (BC)

This simulation helps students in grades four to eight see their planet as one environment with limited resources shared by all. Students learn that the earth is a large system comprised of small systems, that systems are interdependent and often have irreplaceable parts, and that resources are not equally divided among countries. (RM)