Description of the Interactive Tool
“Teaching systems thinking to 4th and 5th graders using Environmental Dashboard display technology” is a research article published on PLoS ONE in April 2017. The main objective of the authors is to provide a method of teaching complex system thinking to children. In order to analyse complex environmental challenges, there is the need to understand how the interactions and relationships between different parts result in a dynamic conduct of the entire system. System thinking has been addressed by different studies, but there is little research on tools and methods that can be used to teach this skill to children and secondary students. The authors then provide a didactic tool, the Environmental Dashboard (ED), as an instrument for teaching complexity. The ED is an open-source simulation technology which gives feedback and real-time data on a whole city and its individual buildings. Combining images with text, this tool has enhanced both systems thinking skills and content retention in users. The article aims at explaining how to actively integrate this resource into lessons on electricity to 4th and 5th grade students.

Citation: Clark S, Petersen JE, Frantz CM, Roose D, Ginn J, Rosenberg Daneri D (2017) Teaching systems thinking to 4th and 5th graders using Environmental Dashboard display technology. PLoS ONE 12(4): e0176322. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0176322<br />

Points of Strength
The Environmental Dashboard software is a unique didactic tool since it uses real-time data on the environmental performance of the buildings on the simulation dashboard. The main point of strength is that it engages students and helps teachers explain them complex systems in an interactive manner.