Stephan Berchtold
School Development – a Systems Perspective

During the last decade the need to do something about schools has increased significantly. The reasons are myriad. In this presentation the author will give a short abstract of how schools came to their current status. This builds the basis for an analysis of a school from a systems perspective. Questions such as "Is a school an organisation?" or "Can school be seen as a social system?" will highlight some of the major weaknesses. Based on 5 years work in School Development the presenter will also give a short case study using a systems tool, the so called Causal Loop Diagrams, to show how systems tools can be applied in Organisational Development.

Stephan Berchtold, Ernst Gebetsroither, Stefan Gueldenberg, Austria
Causal Loop Diagramming - a practical 'crash course'

In this presentation three systems modelling experts from the System Dynamics Group Austria with different professional backgrounds (educational, managerial and scientific) will offer a practical "crash course" for everyone who wants to learn the basics of Causal Loop Diagramming, a simple yet flexible tool for diagramming systemic situations. In mathematical terms causal loop diagrams are oriented graphs (of nodes and edges), with "+" and "-" signs attached to the edges. So causal loop diagramming can be considered as a kind of "applied graph theory", which has become prominent in many fields of systemic enterprise. The scope of this workshop will be:

• Positive and negative causal effects
• indirect causal effects
• escalating and stabilising loops of causal effects
• basic archetypes of causal loop structures in systems

Ernst Gebetsroither, Austria
Modelling Carbon Dioxide Pollution in Austria

One of the major ecological issues world-wide is the increase on carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. At the international Climate Conference in Kyoto 1991 Austria has committed itself to reduce until 2010 the Carbon Dioxide emissions by 13%, compared to the emissions of 1990. To fulfil this goal it is necessary to understand the national carbon cycle of Austria, an interdisciplinary team lead by Austrian Research Centre Seibersdorf (ARCS) has developed a system dynamics model of the Austrian Carbon Balance Cycle. The findings of this modelling are being used by political decision-makers in Austria. Ernst Gebetsroither, the co-ordinator of this project, will report about the experiences of this project.