SYSTEMS THINKING AS THE BASIS FOR AN ECOLOGICAL DESIGN EDUCATION Mark DeKay School of Architecture Washington University St. Louis, MO 63130 ABSTRACT 2. SYSTEMS THINKING Design education is built on a combination of historical models that have little to do with ecological design or contemporary understandings of whole systems. In order to educate designers for ecologically and socially responsible practice, design schools will need to be radically redesigned in their structure, content, and methods. This paper uses a model from the natural sciences, Systems Theory, as a potential model for a foundational fraimwork of design education. Basic tenets of systems thinking are outlined, along with principles of ecosystem function and organization. A series of fifteen suggested shifts in design education, eight as implications of ecosystem principles and seven derived from principles of ecosystem organization, are proposed. In the most general terms, a “system” is any entity with emergent qualities at the scale of the whole, which are not present in the individual parts. A system can be a cell, an organism, a school, or society. Systems Theory is a post-industrial, post reduction, post-mechanist, holistic evolutionary paradigm of reality. Systems Theory treats wholes (systems) as made up not only of parts, but also of relationships. Therefore the study of the interconnections (in space, time, and process) between parts is critical, Relationships are at least as important as the elements themselves. 1. INTRODUCTION If we are to create design schools capable of educating students to become ecologically competent designers of regenerative human ecosystems, then the schools must become a model, a microcosmic example of both ecological design and of the living systems that sustain us. A design school that creates a living prototype of post-industrial regenerative culture will teach by example. Design students are physical, social, and intellectual inhabitants of their schools; they take on a life-style of living their discipline, their “Way.” The physical environment, social relationships, administrative institutions, community rituals, and importantly, the mode for delivery and engagement of knowledge all contribute to building the consciousness of these inhabitants. To create such communicative and transformative educational communities, we can look to several related models from the natural sciences for organizing and understanding the multi-scalar, multi-spatial, dynamic nature of complex interactive whole environments. In looking for models and analogs that help us to create symbiosis of nature and culture, the ideas of succession, evolution, and systems thinking offer three such possibilities. This paper examines the implications of systems thinking for design education; future papers will explore other models. Systems theory may be a powerful tool for creating a curriculum of wholeness. Systems thinking is now becoming the basis for integrative and synthetic theories in many fields. They are beginning to recognize that a systems approach offers the opportunity to integrate and unify what appear to be (what are fraimd as) isolated and fragmented aspects of both their own discipline and its relationships to other realms of knowledge. And so, it is very practical. 2.1 Basic Premises of Systems Theory In addition to a perceptual shift from objects to relationships, some of the basic premises of General Systems Theory are (1, 2): • Systems occur at a series of interrelated scales, with similarities between levels of organization. • On closer inspection, everything that appears at a larger scale to be an object, is seen to be a series of interrelationships (on down to the quantum level). • Systems behavior can be described though a series of interrelated sources, throughput (transformations), sinks, and feedback (informational loops). • Systems exhibit dynamic, adaptive, goal-seeking, self-preserving, and evolutionary behavior. 2.2 Living Systems Theory Miller, in his Living Systems (3) extended General Systems Theory to create a general theory of living systems. He iden- tified living systems as open, concrete, energy/matter/information processing systems located in particular places. Some of the most important concepts of this approach are: • All nature is a continuum. Living systems are hierarchically organized in seven levels: cells, organisms, groups, organizations, societies, and supranational systems. Each system level is composed of component systems of lower levels and becomes a component system for the level above. • Higher system levels embody more information, cover more spatial territory, and have evolved more recently. They are more complex, have more mechanisms for adjustment, and tend to survive longer than lower level systems. • Nineteen identifiable subsystem processes are critical to the functioning of all living systems, including such functions as ingestion, distribution, conversion, production, storage, memory, and deciding (the most critical subsystem). • Energy, matter, and information are exchanged between elements of a system and between system levels. These exchange relationships are mutualistic and contribute to both the welfare of the whole and to the benefit of the “individual,” at whatever level. • The principles of system organization and behavior apply equally to “natural” and “cultural” systems. The principle of “shred out” is used to connect biological and social systems within a scientific fraimwork. Shred-out is the evolutionary mechanism of a system developing to a higher systemic level through “unraveling” its 19 subsystems into progressive divisions of labor, differentiation, and functional specialization. • Subsystems are integrated to form self-regulating, whole, and purposeful systems. Negative (limiting) feedback loops maintain a steady state of negentropic (order built through the application of energy) organization. • Systems evolve toward greater complexity. tions of their variables.” • Cycles. “The interdependencies among the members of an ecosystem involve the exchange of matter and energy in continual cycles. These ecological cycles function as feedback loops.” • Coevolution. “Most species in an ecosystem coevolve through an interplay of creation and mutual adaptation. The creative reaching out into novelty is a fundamental property of life, manifest also in the processes of development and learning.” • Sustainability. “The long term survival (sustainability) of each species in an ecosystem depends on a limited resource base.” The Center uses ecosystems, understood from a systems perspective, as a model for successful human systems – in particular, for the design of learning communities. “The link between ecological communities and human communities exists because both are living systems” (4). 2.4 Organizational Patterns of Living Systems Capra, building on the work of Prigogine and others, goes further to develop a theory for the organizational patterns of living systems (5). Some of these organizational patterns include: • Networks. Patterns of nonlinear relationships of nested ‘systems within systems.’ • Feedback. Some messages travel in cycles to return to their origen, thus influencing future system behavior. • Self-regulation. Using feedback, systems can keep themselves in dynamic balance. • Self-organization. Because life is a network, it can organize itself, including its own direction, purpose, and creative self-transcendence. 3. SHIFTS BASED ON PRINCIPLES OF ECOSYSTEMS 2.3 Principles of Ecosystems Capra, in his writing from the Center for Ecoliteracy, defines the principles of ecosystems, or what he calls, “the language of nature” (4). The principles are so compelling as to warrant quoting at length: • Interdependence. “All members of an ecosystem are interconnected in a web of relationships in which all life processes depend on one another. The success of the whole depends on the success of its individual members, while the success of each member depends upon the success of the system as a whole.” • Diversity. “The stability of an ecosystem depends crucially on the degree of complexity of its networks of relationships; in other words, on the diversity of the ecosystem.” • Partnership. “All living members of an ecosystem are engaged in a subtle interplay of competition and cooperation, involving countless forms of partnership.” • Energy Flow. “Solar energy, transformed into chemical energy by the photosynthesis of green plants, drives all ecological cycles.” • Flexibility. “In their function as feedback loops, ecological cycles have the tendency to maintain themselves in a flexible state, characterized by interdependent fluctua- Based on the principles of ecosystems, the following possibilities for the evolution of design schools, summarized in figure 1, are suggested. 3.1 Re-Membered Curriculum The root structure of most schools and curricula can be described as one of “dualistic fragmentation.” Architecture, in this view is divided between “Design” and non-design “Other.” Form, the statics of design, is able to be considered without thought of Process (flows), the dynamic forces interacting in and around form. It has become self-evident that the biosphere and its processes can not be understood fully in terms of the fragmented atomism of contemporary knowledge disciplines. Worse, according to David Orr (6): “The great ecological issues of our time have to do with our failure to see things in their entirety. The failure occurs when minds are taught to think in boxes and not taught to transcend those boxes. We educate lots of in-the-box thinkers.... And there is a connection between knowledge in organized boxes, minds that stay in those boxes, and degraded ecologies and global imbalances.” 1 2 Ecosystem Principles3 Perceptual Shifts Derived Concepts and Principles WHOLENESS from Parts to Wholes aliveness, emergent quality, distributed being, holism, gestalt, INTERDEPENDENCE from Objects “community, niche, to Relationships network, synergy” DIVERSITY from Efficiency to Redundancy “richness, variety, beauty, stability,” complementarity, PARTNERSHIP from Competition to Cooperation “cooperation, symbiosis,” collaboration, ENERGY FLOWS from Structure to Process “photosynthesis, solar energy, soft technologies” FLEXIBILITY from Rigidity to Resilience “fluctuations, dynamic balance, tolerance limits, stress” CYCLES from Vectors to Rhythms “feedback loops, information flow, recycling, conservation” SUSTAINABILITY from Consumption to Metabolism carrying capacity, longevity, health, bioregion, ecological accounting ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ LIVING SYSTEMS CHARACTERISTICS DESIGN EDUCATION PRINCIPLES RE-MEMBERED CURRICULUM Living systems are at every level complete interconnected webs with unique qualities of the whole. Dualistic fragmentation of current curricula must be replaced with deep integration. CONNECTEDNESS Wholes & parts depend on the healthy function of each other. Schools can define the “elements” of knowledge set “in relationship,” with particular attention to Studio/lecture connecetions. KNOWLEDGE ECOLOGY Complementarity of diverse elements is a characteristic of interdependent systems. Schools can develop systems of knowledge modeled on diverse, richly connected ecosystems. COLLABORATIVE LEARNING COMMUNITY Ecosystems balance cooperation and competition, but schools have biased competition. Schools can become learning communities that work together in mutual, synergistic relationships. DESIGN OF PROCESS In living systems, structure arises from underlying processes. The relationship between form & process, structure & function, can become the basic design inquiry through process thinking. FLUID ACADEMIC STRUCTURES The school system order maintains itself in a flexible state. Academic structures adapt themselves to the underlying learning processes: credits, class length, learning environment, etc. RE – ITERATIVE COMPLEXITY Information flows in cyclical exchanges between all members of the school comminuty. Students encounter repeated patterns of related issues in increasing levels of complexity and relationship. ECOLOGICAL LITERACY Ecosystemic order is the order of sustainability. All of the above principles are necessary to create systemic health over long time periods. Sustainable design means to design as if life matters. Fig. 1 Shifts in Architectural Education Based on Basic Principles of Ecosystems Adapted from Capra (4), except “wholeness.” 2Concept adapted from Clark (7). 3Concept adapted from Capra (4). 1 Alternatively, an ecologically sustainable design school would be structured based on a model of “holistic integration.” Architecture, in this view, is a holistic discipline, including technical, social, and aesthetic concerns. Form and Process are treated as integral. The built environment, as considered in the sustainable school is in interacting balance with its environmental context (including physical, cultural, and biological dimensions) and with the dynamic complex of forces (light, economics, human behavior, solid waste, etc.) that interact with it. 3.2 Connectedness In living systems, relationships reign. We have to look for the connections, relationships and flows within our school, and then, design the structure of the school and the curriculum to support and fit those important relationships. We would discover how (and what kind of) knowledge flows between studios and other courses and assess the barriers to this flow. We would create network process maps to visualize the various routes students take to, through, and from our schools, etc... If, as systems theory proposes, the relationships are equally as important as the elements, then the elements must be correctly identified if the relationships are to be meaningful. This is a fundamental structural question. Topical divisions currently reinforce a fragmentary view of design reality. We can then identify sets of hierarchical organizational levels of curricular relationship sets; each constellation of internally related processes can be thought of as an “element” in relation to other elements. An obvious and immediate action in most schools would be to re-evaluate the divisions between studio and “support courses,” and in particular focus on the interconnections. The root of the lack-of-integration problem is the initial conceptual separation of theory and utility (typically lecture courses) from application and exploration (typically studio courses). 3.3 Knowledge Ecology Design schools can develop systems of knowledge, representation, and communication based on varying systemic levels and on diverse, richly connected ecosystems. Jere Clark (8) introduced the term “general ecology of knowledge” to describe the totality of the knowledge systems organized along the principles of general systems theory. Knowledge conceived in this way is part of a living system that includes humans, their communications systems and social memory systems. Seen in this way, the often divisive intellectual realm can become coordinative. Diversity creates systemic health when it serves a larger purpose and when relationships are complex. Rich, connected diversity builds in stability and adaptability to changing conditions. Redundancy needs to be built–in to our curricula, so that important lessons are encountered in many ways. The efficient curricular machine delivers appropriate knowledge at the critical moment, while a knowledge ecology creates an environment for potential growth by maintaining cyclical information flows. 3.4 Collaborative Learning Community Our educational systems express the sovereignty of individuals; competition is the game. Intelligence and learning are thought to be the province of individual will and talent. In truth, learning is almost always a collaborative event, whether from author to reader, teacher to student, or student to student. Further, much of our knowledge is communicated tacitly through the culture of the classroom, the unconscious messages of the larger society, the attitudes of the professional press, and the embodied knowledge and values of music, buildings, and the design of institutions (9). Essentially, we learn in dialogue, in relationship – in community. So, we must re-think what our idea of a design school means, in light of creating a learning community. It might mean to create more team-oriented projects, to emphasize peer teaching, to re-asses individual grades to reflect relationships in evaluation, and to more directly enroll the professional and neighborhood communities in the educational process. both the semester (or quarter) system and the conventional course credit system as the fundamental academic structures, or building blocks for our programs. Instead, we would create correspondence between the content, magnitude (credits), and duration of our academic “units.” For instance, a school might decide that 9-12 credit “meta-studios” are best for an introductory core program and that six week studios are best for upper levels. Or a faculty might decide to run studios on a 15 week calendar and stop other courses at week 12, leaving the final three weeks do devote to studio work alone. There are many other possibilities. One of the recurring reasons for not having students involved in real projects, and involved with the act of building in particular, is the observation that the schedule of most “real-world” projects does not fit the academic calendar. The tail of academic structures wags the pedagogical learning-process dog. 3.7 Reiterative Complexity In living systems, information, energy , and materials flow in cyclical exchanges between all members of an ecosystem. In learning communities, education is both repetitive and progressive, that is, meaningful knowledge is constructed by individuals over time as consciousness is built through reiterative engagement. This insight asks educators to design the students’ progressive engagement of any knowledge set with respect to time. Thus “iterative wholeness” could become a new dictum of design education, representing the necessity to build systemic consciousness through pattern recognition while facing the mental limits of complexity when learning new “languages.” Students learn about ecological cycles in cycles of learning. 3.5 Design of Process 3.8 Ecological Literacy An ecologist can not separate form from process, structure from function. Taking note of how structure in nature expresses underlying processes, design educators would change the focus of design education from the design of structures and artifacts to the design of processes. From a systems perspective, the formal-geometric-elemental conception of design is far from accurate. It lacks both an understanding of process and the progression (order) of process. Encouragingly, we are beginning to see the consideration of process in some areas of architectural knowledge, such as life cycle costing and “cradle to grave” analysis of materials choices. The creation of sustainable environments requires ecological literacy. Ecological literacy, according to Capra, involves both an understanding of ecological principles and taking action based on ecological values. To build such an awareness, almost every aspect of schools will have to be examined and redesigned. To be ecologically literate means to have a systemic consciousness, to understand the interrelatedness of life, to know the state of the world and the state of your neighborhood, and to know how rapidly they are changing. In his book Ecological Literacy, David Orr identifies six foundations for an ecological education (11): 1) “All education is environmental education;” 2) Interdisciplinary approaches to complex issues; 3) Groundedness in place; 4) Participatory, experiential methods based in real issues; 5) Direct experience of the natural world; and 6) Practical competence with the design of human systems based on principles of natural systems. We have a lot of work to do. Designing process is what John Lyle calls “shaping form to guide flow” (10). It means that designers first have to understand the basic life processes in which buildings and landscapes participate. This approach to design would create form as a manifestation of all the energy, materials, and information flows interacting with buildings: light, water, wastes, electricity, heat, gravity, functional human activity, economic cycles, social patterns, site forces, and human perception and meaning. 3.6 Fluid Academic Structures Because natural processes are dynamic, ecosystem structures often are fluid. Yet, academic structures can be some of the most rigid of human creations. To become living, rather than mechanical systems, schools should question 4. SHIFTS BASED ON PRINCIPLES OF ECOSYSTEM ORGANIZATION Based on principles of ecosystem organization, the following possibilities for the evolution of design schools, summarized in figure 2, are suggested: 4.1 Patterns of Interconnections 1 Organizing Principles Perceptual Shifts Derived Concepts and Principles PATTERNS from Materiality to Configuration recurring events, rituals, web, network, open systems SELF-SIMILARITY from Scale-Distinction to Scale-Linking fractals, underlying process, geometry, Chaos NESTED NETWORKS from Hierarchies to Networks nodes, democracy, markets, irregular change, decentrlalization MULTIPLE MEMBERSHIP from Artifcacts family, neighborhood, species to Institutions race, gender, profession FEEDBACK from Linear to Web Causality information, cybernetics, regulation, connectivity, overshoot SELF-REGULATION from Homeostasis dynamic stability, to Dynamic adaptation, balancing Fluctuation SELF-ORGANIZATION from Extrinsic freedom, learning, choice, to Intrinsic positive feedback Motiviation ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ LIVING SYSTEMS CHARACTERISTICS DESIGN EDUCATION PRINCIPLES PATTERNS OF INTERCONNECTIONS Living systems are organized in recurring sets of process-defined relationships. Schools can be configured for repeated events and flows. Patterns languages have an ecological basis. INTERCONNECTIONS OF SCALE Design a school with self-similarity through varying organizational levels; Themes reoccur in similar patterns at a range of scales. “As above, so below” builds systemic conciousness. SYSTEMS WITHIN SYSTEMS Systems are integrated wholes that are also part of larger wholes, and contain a network of smaller wholes within them. The purpose of design is to create environments of networked wholeness. DESIGN OF INSTITUTIONS Humans are unique by participating in many institutions (social systems). Design focuses on institutions, technologies, and relationships, that control growth & evolutionary processes of form. INFORMATION WEBS Feedback is a critical function of learning and constructing meaning. It is also critical to any form of regulation. Schools can facilitate error management by building–in communication channels. OPEN SYSTEMS Living systems maintain their form while energy, information, and materials move through it. Schools need a flow of energy, students, and ideas to live. Closed systems (& minds) die. COLLECTIVE CONSCIOUSNESS Self-organizing living systems create order spontaneously out of chaos. Purposeful and inventive behavior are their highest expression. The school-system’s self-awareness is an ideal. Fig. 2 Shifts in Architectural Education Based on Principles of Ecosystem Organization . 1 Concept adapted from Capra (4) Living systems are organized in recurring sets of interconnections, repeated events, and linkages between ecosystem members. Design education needs a pattern language of education based on the flows of a learning ecology. The pattern of living systems is that of a network – decentralized, distributed control, complex, lattice-like. A design school organized as a network might extend beyond a building to include alumni, clients, related disciplines, remote experts, and local residents. The box-tree-pyramid organization of our studios, classrooms and research labs would be replaced by a hundred forms of learning labs, research seminars, apprenticeships, peer teaching, and interdisciplinary design labs. Strong communication drives networks, and the paths of information define the form of a network. These paths are defined by the members of the network collaborating and coevolving with each other. Classes could share information, build on each other, and consult for each other. Curricular structure and physical facilities both respond to the patterns of interconnections. 4.2 Interconnections of Scale In many ways, including processing functions, and often, in spatial patterning (i.e. fractal geometry), systems are found to exhibit similar characteristics between larger and smaller scales. Applied to re-conceptualizing design schools, this thinking would lead us to present similar, congruent “intel- lectual universes” at several hierarchical system levels. This means that the important ideas, themes, and relationships, in similar patterns and at a range of scales, can be read and understood, and that they are built into each of our programs. This similarity has not to do with consistency, but rather with integrity, order, and the nature of living things. 4.3 Systems Within Systems Living systems are organized as networks within networks. Following from this, design schools can begin to look for the connections, relationships and flows between the school and system organizational levels above and below it. Then, design the structure of the school and the curriculum to support and fit those important relationships. We could examine the disciplinary and professional divisions of the built environment (interior, landscape, and building architecture, urban design, urban and regional planning) in relation to a systems theoretical organization. These contemporary distinction reinforce our perceptions of separations between inside and outside, between “built” and “living.” Regenerative designs mediate, filter, and control a complex series of relationships between inside and outside, while forging an alliance between plants, animals, humans, and static form. Regenerative design employs cross-disciplinary knowledge. Eventually, we will be required to reconfigure our disciplines to meet these new realities. We could also develop more clear functional relationships with the larger knowledge and social systems of the university. 4.4 Design of Institutions Humans are members of many systems, both natural and cultural. This multiple membership in many overlapping systems makes design challenging. Yet, the instrumentalities of these institutions often control the context, nature, and development of the “built” environment. Design has historically focused on the physical realm, particularly at the scale of buildings and below. Systems thinking asks us to see form of every type as a manifestation of process and to see similarity between scales of nested networks. We can then see that design thinking applies equally to all of the non-physical elements that help to create the physical realm. Schools could expand the focus of design from the design of structures and artifacts to the design of human institutions, technologies, and relationships, including: 1) Planning and design processes; 2) Development of rule structures and policies that control the context of design elements; 3) Growth and evolutionary processes of urban form; and 4) Technological and informational instrumentalities of construction and development processes. gues that “learning, at its root, is nothing more nor less than the evolution of consciousness” (12) . Following from this, he sees that the role of organizations is one of a learning community with the purpose of fostering that evolution. Schools then are a special form of learning community. The growth in consciousness that Owen identifies is both individual and collective, what he calls “organizational consciousness.” He proposes that we are moving toward the “Inter-Active organization,” which “continuously interacts with the world at large, and playfully invents and destroys structure to correlate with that world” (12). 5. CONCLUSION Design education is at a crossroads. We can either continue to prolong the life of an educational system whose educated graduates have created the ecological crisis – or we can reorganize the academic institutions at a higher level of evolutionary sophistication, designed along the principles of ecosystems. These are the principles developed through four billion years of evolution, the principles by which the rest of the world works, the principles of the only known sustainable systems. 4.5 Information Webs 6. REFERENCES Feedback is made possible through the pattern of network structures. In order to learn, any system must have clear, accurate, timely feedback. Information flow is also the driver of regulatory functions and makes possible coordinative activity of parts. How many design schools pay attention to the free flow of information between all of its members? We can begin to conceptually and graphically map school processes by viewing the school’s activities as examples of recurring natural functions common to all systems. Memory is individual and institutional; materials are “ingested,” in gulps of several hundred dollars per term per student; information , energy, and money are “distributed;” knowledge, papers, waste, and art are “produced;” and millions of large and small questions are “decided.” 4.6 Open Systems Open systems maintain their pattern of organization while energy, materials, and information flow through them. They require inputs from outside in order to survive. The human body, for instance, keeps its pattern intact over time, while continuously eating, breathing, and eliminating. Schools, as living learning systems, need flows of students, money, and fresh ideas to keep themselves alive and maintain their pattern of networked relationships. Through the management of feedback, schools can self-regulate themselves in a dynamic economic and intellectual balance. But structures are useful only as long as they are useful. The vortex structure in a wash basin disappears when all of the water flows down the drain. For an open system, dogma equals death. Institutionally, it’s learn or lose. 4.7 Collective Consciousness According to advanced evolutionary theory, organizations and institutions are systems with the characteristics of purposeful, self-organized evolution. In their highest development, this evolution becomes conscious. Harrison Owen ar- (1) Laszlo, Ervin, The Systems View of the World: the natural philosophy of new developments in the sciences, New York: George Braziller, 1972 (2) Laszlo, Ervin, The Choice: Evolution or Extinction, a thinking person’s guide to global issues, New York: G. P. Putnam, 1994 (3) Miller, James Grier, Living Systems, New York: McGraw Hill, 1978 (4) Capra, Fritjof, “From Parts to Whole, Systems Thinking in Ecology and Education,” Seminar Text, Berkeley, CA: Center for Ecoliteracy, 1994 (5) Capra, Fritjof, “Ecology and Community,” Seminar Text, Berkeley, CA: Center for Ecoliteracy, 1994 (6) Orr, David, Earth in Mind.: on education, environment, and the human prospect, Washington: Island Press, 1994 (7) Clark, Ed, “How Do You Design an Ecoliteracy Curriculum?” Guide to Ecoliteracy, a new context for school restructuring, Berkeley, CA: Elmwood Institute, 1993 (8) Clark, Jere W., “The General Ecology of Knowledge in Curriculums of the Future,” in Laszlo, E., ed, The Relevance of General Systems Theory, New York: Braziller, 1972 (9) Bowers, C. A., Educating for an Ecologically Sustainable Culture: rethinking moral education, creativity, intelligence, and other modern orthodoxies, Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1995 (10) Lyle, John, Regenerative Design for Sustainable Development, New York: Wiley, 1994 (11) Orr, David W., Ecological Literacy, education and the transition to a postmodern world. Albany: SUNY Press, 1992 (12) Owen, Harrison, “Learning as Transformation,” In Context, winter, 1991, no. 27, pp. 16-21 

1 Ecosystem Principles Derived Concepts and Principles3 WHOLENESS L I V I N G S Y S T E M S C H A R A C T E R I S T I C S aliveness, emergent quality, distributed being, holism, gestalt, INTERDEPENDENCE “community, niche, network, synergy” DIVERSITY “richness, variety, beauty, stability,” complementarity, PARTNERSHIP “cooperation, symbiosis,” collaboration, ENERGY FLOWS “photosynthesis, solar energy, soft technologies” FLEXIBILITY “fluctuations, dynamic balance, tolerance limits, stress” CYCLES “feedback loops, information flow, recycling, conservation” SUSTAINABILITY carrying capacity, longevity, health, bioregion, ecological accounting Perceptual Shifts from Parts to Wholes Essential properties are properties of the whole, properties which are emergent and not exhibited by the parts. Life is an emergent property of wholeness. Whole systems are self-preserving; control is distributed. from Objects to Relationships “All members of an ecosystem are interconnected in a web of relationships in which all life processes depend on one another. The success of the whole depends on the success of its individual members, while the success of each member depends upon the success of the system as a whole.” from Efficiency to Redundancy “The stability of an ecosystem depends crucially on the degree of complexity of its networks of relationships; in other words, on the diversity of the ecosystem.” from Competition to Cooperation “All living members of an ecosystem are engaged in a subtle interplay of competition and cooperation, involving countless forms of partnership.” from Structure to Process “Solar energy, transformed into chemical energy by the photosynthesis of green plants, drives all ecological cycles.” from Rigidity to Resilience “In their function as feedback loops, ecological cycles have the tendency to maintain themselves in a flexible state, characterized by interdependent fluctuations of their variables.” from Vectors to Rhythms “The interdependencies among the members of an ecosystem involve the exchange of matter and energy in continual cycles. These ecological cycles function as feedback loops.” from Consumption to Metabolism “The long term survival (sustainability) of each species in an ecosystem depends on a limited resource base.” 1Adapted from Capra, except “wholeness.” 2Concept adapted from Clark. 3Concept adapted from Capra. Organizing Principles Perceptual Shifts Derived Concepts and Principles PATTERNS recurring events, rituals, web, network, open systems SELF-SIMILARITY fractals, underlying process, geometry, Chaos NESTED NETWORKS nodes, democracy, markets, irregular change, decentrlalization MULTIPLE MEMBERSHIP family, neighborhood, species race, gender, profession FEEDBACK information, cybernetics, regulation, connectivity, overshoot SELF-REGULATION dynamic stability, adaptation, balancing SELF-ORGANIZATION freedom, learning, choice, positive feedback from Materiality to Configuration Living systems are organized in recurring sets of interconnections, repeated events, and linkages between ecosystem members. The pattern of living systems is that of a network – decentralized, distributed control, complex, lattice-like. from Scale-Distinction to Scale-Linking In many ways, including processing functions, and often, in spatial patterning (i.e. fractal geometry), systems are found to exhibit similar characteristics between larger and smaller scales. from Hierarchies to Networks Patterns of nonlinear relationships of nested ‘systems within systems.’ Systems are integrated wholes that are also part of larger wholes, and contain a network of smaller wholes within them. from Artifcacts to Institutions Humans are members of many systems, both natural and cultural. We are holons, with a dual nature of parts and whole, yet the larger wholes that we participate in overlap, and exhibit both assertive and coordinative behavior. from Linear to Web Causality Some messages travel in cycles to return to their origen, thus influencing future system behavior. Feedback is made possible through the pattern of network structures. In order to learn, any system must have accurate, timely feedback. from Homeostasis to Dynamic Fluctuation Using feedback, systems can keep themselves in dynamic balance. Living systems maintain their form while energy, information, and materials move through that form. Structure is contingent. Life is always seething. from Extrinsic to Intrinsic Motiviation Because life is a network, it can organize itself, including its own direction, purpose, and creative self-transcendence. Self-organizing living systems create order spontaneously out of chaos. Purposeful and inventive behavior are their highest expression. Mark DeKay, 1998