DOI
http://www.iocd.org/v2_PDF/2020-TechRes0301-SOCME-Intro.pdf

Summary
The International Organization for Chemical Sciences in Development (IOCD) action group, Chemists for Sustainability (C4S) focuses on the role that chemistry must play in contributing to a more sustainable future. Chemistry must adopt systems thinking (ST) and cross-disciplinary as a means to reorient chemistry as a discipline and to optimize the contributions it can, and must, make to sustainable development. Subsequently an international project (2017-2019) on the infusion of systems thinking into general chemistry education (STICE) was established by IUPAC, also supported by IOCD and
co-chaired by Peter Mahaffy and Stephen Matlin.

Relevance for Complex Systems Knowledge
Systems can be complex and thinking about them can be very challenging. A number of visualization tools are available to depict and assist in understanding systems and their interactions. These include stock and flow diagrams, causal loop diagrams, behavior over time graphs, concept maps,
systemigrams and object−process methodology. In the course of developing the STICE project, an intermediate level tool was sought that would be
suitable to help introduce ST into general chemistry. The required tool would assist in portraying the key features of components of a system and their dynamic interactions, would allow ease of drawing with commonly available graphic programs, be suitable for incremental extension and build-up, and
be adaptable for both intra- and inter-system relationships and effects. The traditional Concept Map (CM) has a number of these features but it required some extensions in approach to increase flexibility and range – and, in particular, to make more explicit the system dimension by highlighting the presence of and the functions and interactions between sub-systems. The tool developed to achieve this was the Systems-Oriented Concept Map Extension, SOCME.

Point of Strength
The SOCME tool can aid in exploring, understanding and depicting both within-system and cross-system interactions and in managing complexity. The CM approach uses boxes with Concept Labels, which can be objects, ideas or effects, and Arrows with Descriptions to depict the relationships among the Concept Labels. The example of the SOCME illustrating the biogeochemical flow of CO2 indicates a number of the key features of the utility of this visualization tool.
• The drawings can be constructed using PowerPoint, which means that they can readily be presented step-by-step, item-by-item, as part of teaching classes or discussion or research seminars. Individual subsystems can be given increased attention by adding more detail or supplementary slides, or
omitted entirely if they are irrelevant to the focus of a particular discussion.
• The division into subsystems is a stimulus to learning, discussion and research by helping to identify and expand boundaries and provoke “what if?” questions, such as: “what if we could eliminate the burning of fossil fuels and use only carbon-neutral energy sources (which?): how would this impact
the total level of CO2 in the atmosphere?”; and “what if we could capture all CO2 generated by industrial processes (how?): how would we use the captured carbon in ways that would not ultimately lead to its release as atmospheric CO2?”