Hi everyone. Welcome to the Systems Mindset module. In this module, we're going to talk specifically about what it means to have that systems mindset, what it takes to set that in motion, and why that's important as a professional. But first, we're going to talk about what it is to have a system, what the definition of a system is and why that's important, and how that then flows into having a systems mindset. The goal here is to develop that systems mindset. After you define what the system is that you'll be working in, how that sets you apart as a professional to have that systems mindset. Now, I'm going to present a picture that you'll see a number of times. But I want you to begin thinking about what that means in terms of a system. Now, we haven't talked and we haven't introduced the term a system. But I want you to find something that you can visualize. So here's a place that I work in Eastern Oregon. It's in the western United States. You can see some farmland, you'll be able to see an area that appears to be forested, and you'll see some area that's designated as Timber. So large trees that have been used in the past for forestry. Then you can see land that is designated USFS. That is the US National Forest System. I want you to take a good look about this place, and take a look at the different types of potentially land uses, how places are arranged, potentially seeing different property areas, and different parcels. I want you to visualize that because we're going to talk about that throughout this class. Again, our goal here is to formalize, which you may already know. But I want you to begin really to get thinking in a more holistic way. That's really what the systems thinking is about. To put the constituent parts together and to think about those interactions, feedbacks of the different parts, and what we'll call actors, the people. They are the ones making the decisions. Those decisions create some sort of interaction, reaction, and do some change that will then ripple through other parts of the system, or maybe all throughout the system, or interact with other systems. So again, this way of thinking about a system and thinking about the systems mindset is thinking in a more broad and holistic way. So again, here we're going to formalize the obvious. This is more than theory here. This is about thinking about problems that are complicated. They're nonlinear. Changes are occurring in different communities, ecosystems, landscapes, and regions. These changes have different paces, different scales, and spans different amounts of time. So I want you to think about how those different interactions can happen, how they can affect different populations of people or places or the legacy of a place and may not affect others, and how those changes may affect these places at one time but not another. Their effects may change over time and certainly may be inconsistent or may diminish over time. So I want you to think about how different places may have a different and distinct character and how they've been shaped because of the people that live there, because of the different geographies, because of the different industries that they have there. You cannot think about system simply working in isolation. So I want you to think about the community that you live in, and how it has changed over time. Why has it changed? Has it changed because people are moving in? People have moved out? Because of different industries that have boomed in your area? I want you to think about that place that you live. I want to show another picture about Eastern Oregon in the United States. This is the same place that you saw before, but I want to show you a different perspective, one that's on the ground, instead of what you're seeing above. So let's consider this example of Eastern Oregon in the western United States to illustrate why a systems mindset is useful. In this region, about 50 percent of the land is public land. That means that it's managed, in this case, by the US Federal Government. So since the late 1990s, timber production which supported the large majority of the economy in this place diminished. It had historically supported much of the economy in the region, in fact. Most of that timber production was done on federal lands, which really was again that economic engine that supported large number of jobs, manufacturing, and other secondary and tertiary industries. But in the 1990s, for a variety of reasons, the production declined, forests became more dense, drier conditions and denser forests have been led to a higher fire risk. At the same time, that declining forest production on the federal lands meant that there has been fewer jobs. There's been little capacity for production. So that means that there's been fewer mills, mills have closed down, logging crews have not found work, trucking companies have declined as well or people have moved out of the area. That has meant that jobs go away. When those major jobs and manufacturing jobs that are good family-wage jobs go away, then other industries go away as well. As well as with reduced receipts of timber harvests, the schools receive less funding and are forced to have four day school weeks. So you can imagine that ripple effect that has had on child education. So if we're thinking solely about the environment, we might want to consider how forests should be managed to reduce wildfire risk, or the impact on bird or fish populations. If we're thinking solely on local communities, we might want to think about how to improve local economies through new business opportunities, new ventures, creating new markets for products, tracking a diverse workforce, or we might be thinking simply about schools. However, it is a much more complicated system than that. Our intention here is to develop that critical thinking in a broad way, in that holistic way that allows us to consider multiple perspectives and to understand different processes. Rather than dive deep into ecology or community economic development or really constrain our thinking, I want you to think much more broadly. I want you to consider a variety of those perspectives. I want to think about the tools that are going to allow us to think across disciplines, across your experience, and think about who we might involve to get a rich picture of what is happening. We also want to include our own experience. This provides us with again that rich picture and multiple perspectives that we are going to utilize in creating solutions. By understanding product processes, perspectives, and by developing critical thinking skills, we can develop place-based solutions. Something that is not generalizable to places beyond where you working. We're going to use those tools that you develop, that you can apply to other places, but they are going to be very place-specific because you understand what each community is going through, what each organization is going through. We're going to provide those tools for you to work across a variety of different systems and importantly, to engage stakeholders. So let's get into this systems mindset. This module is going to include how we're going to define a system. We're going to of course talk about key terms that you are going to need to know as you progress in your learning. We're going to talk about scale and hierarchy and why that is important. Then we're going to introduce something called the social and environmental system, and why different social and environmental systems interact, and what that means for the type of work that you will be doing.
