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Systems Behavior
Once a student has identified a state variable for their system, have them sketch a rough graph to illustrate the difference between “good” and “bad” behaviors for that state variable. In general the “bad” behavior is the actual or anticipated state variable behavior that people are worried about (the environmental “problem”), whereas the “good” behavior describes how the state variable would behave if the problem were fixed.
If your student is having a great deal of trouble creating these graphs, it may help to choose a different state variable. Try to find one that really captures the difference between the desirable and undesirable system behavior.
Kendra’s graph does a nice job of illustrating the difference between the “problem” situation (declining coral reef health) and the desired situation (consistently healthy coral reefs). Note how she has plotted the difference in behavior of her state variable for the two situations.
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