studying the lorax with feedback loops - Creative Learning Exchange

The element “Thneed Production” occurs in all three loops, so the loopscan be combined:Once the loops are combined inone diagram, encourage students tostate the dynamics of the Lorax storyin their own words. By referring to thedifferent loops in the diagram, studentscan trace how different loopsdominate at different points in thestory. Seeing how loop dominancechanges and affects complex systems isan important technique.10. SUMMING UPUse this lesson plan as an example,and expect that students will havediffering opinions about The Lorax, asthey will about any complex issue.Encourage students to use the connectioncircle tool to find feedback loopsthat will help explain and illustratetheir arguments.Stories and issues often hinge onconflicting loops. Dominance amongloops may change and affect the story,as it does in The Lorax. The ProfitsLoop, the Production Loop, and theLorax’s Environment Loop are allconnected. Students will see that theloops contain some elements incommon. Wherever humans build,these loops will come into play. Whilethere are no easy solutions, understandingthe feedback loops helps usunderstand the situation and makemore informed decisions.© 2012 Creative Learning Exchange www.clexchange.orgWorking in K-12 education to develop Systems CitizensPermission granted for photocopying and/or electronic distribution for non-commercial educational purposes with attributionThe image of a book cover is on page 1 and the copyright for it is most likely owned either by the artist who created the cover or the publisher of thebook. It is believed that the use of low-resolution images of book covers to illustrate an article discussing the book in question qualifies as fair use underUnited States copyright law. Other use of this image might be copyright infringement.Page 7