empower participants to contextualize and engage with global issues in their sphere of influence<\/strong> by creating sustainable action plans. Global issues for this year included promoting education for all, a massive step-up in the fight against poverty, addressing biodiversity and ecosystems losses and natural disaster prevention and mitigation. Over the course of 48 hours, students participated in service trips, a simulation, student facilitated workshops to help them formulate their initiatives to tackle these issues.<\/p>\nAmidst all the commotion and dynamism of the weekend, Compass Education intern and ISM alumni, Daniel Um, had the opportunity to not only get to know some of this year’s GINila members, but to conduct an investigation into how using systems thinking and sustainability tools enabled GINila to achieve its overall goal<\/strong>. For at the heart of the conference structure was ISM’s own version of Pyramid Lite- an abridge version of the ISIS Pyramid Process developed by Alan Atkisson and used around the world as a sustainability planning tool. The hopes of the students and faculty coordinators or GINila was that by using sustainability tools to structure the conference, it would enable to understand their place in the local system and how they could impact it to address global issues in a sustainable way.<\/p>\nThrough the use of a survey, interviews and his own observations, Daniel investigated how well the Compass was able to develop delegates’ appreciation and understanding of sustainability, empower students and educate them on how to effectively use sustainability tool <\/strong>to create action plans. His findings indicated that the conference was successful to some extent with regards to all three categories. Some aspects of the conference that were key to promoting success<\/strong> included:<\/p>\n\n- Teaching systems thinking<\/em>:\u00a0using games like the systems equilateral triangle game and feedback loop circle game to teach delegates about tough systems concept.<\/li>\n
- Saturday service trips<\/em>: trips to local service sites to observe, conduct interviews and serve help to contextualize issues and shed light on more pieces of the system.<\/li>\n
- Use of the Sustainability Compass<\/em>: it helps delegates think about issues in a holistic way<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
In addition to the aforementioned effective aspects, Daniel also identified some
goals for improving<\/strong> future student run conference. These included:<\/div>\n\n- Increased facilitator knowledge and practice<\/em>: more practice before hand helps facilitators become more adaptable and dynamic group leaders.<\/li>\n
- Use the Iceberg Model<\/em>: many of the initial action plans of GANGs were very superficial. Maximizing the use of Iceberg Model could help deepen analysis.<\/li>\n
- Longer time frame<\/em>: delegates and facilitators felt rushed. More time might lead to better plans.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Based on the findings of Daniel’s report and the enthusiasm of students involved in conferences like GINila, Compass Education hopes to continue promoting student leadership by encouraging groups like GINila to use Systems Thinking and Sustainability tools to engender postive change in their communities!
In the coming months, look for more students leadership video, resources and facilitator tools on our website.\u00a0<\/strong>Meanwhile, feel free to contact us with questions about how to use tool to begin enhancing leadership at your school.<\/div>\nWatch how students\u00a0effectively using the Sustainability Compass and Systems Thinking tools to address global issues and create action plans at the GINila 2014 .<\/p>\n
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