In the past decade, researchers have shown that playing games can boost students’ ability to think in systems. Any game is a system, after all, and when players take actions, the game itself, as an interactive system, can change. Moving a knight across a chessboard, for example, can change everything for the opposing player.

What is systems thinking? According to the Partnership for 21st-Century Learning, systems thinking relates to critical thinking and problem solving, and systems thinkers can “analyze how parts of a whole interact with each other to produce overall outcomes in complex systems.”

Thinking in Systems

Systems thinking can deepen students’ connection to learning by making it more meaningful and much less rote. One of the ways I introduce systems thinking to students is with the short video “How Wolves Change Rivers,” which illustrates a real-world system. The video explains how the reintroduction of wolves into Yellowstone National Park (an ecosystem) has resulted in a “trophic cascade” of change. The presence of wolves caused elk (who fear them) to graze less frequently in the park’s open meadows. This effect then caused the return of other species, as well as growth of grass across the meadows. The increase in grass strengthened the banks of the park’s rivers, thus affecting the river systems.

Like the Yellowstone ecosystem, games are also systems—models and microcosms of real-world interconnections. And as with the addition of wolves in Yellowstone, adding or changing parts of games can result in interesting and unintended consequences.

Have students try playing tic-tac-toe with three players, or ask them to modify the rules for rock-paper-scissors by adding a fourth possibility. Perhaps players can throw another hand gesture like a thumbs-up or a peace sign? They can then discuss how the added hand gestures—or the third player in tic-tac-toe—affect possible outcomes. (The Big Bang Theory famously remixed rock-paper-scissors to be rock-paper-scissors-lizard-Spock.)

After modding (modifying) these simple games, ask students questions like, “What intended and unintended consequences does the imposition of tariffs have across economic systems?” Or, “What happens to the status quo of characters in books after protagonists take certain actions?” By playing with systems, students can learn to think in systems.

Going further, you might have students digitally simulate real-world and fictional systems using web-based tools like mind maps. Of note is Nicky Case’s LOOPY, a free and easy-to-use tool that animates systems of all types, from ecological to economical, from social to political. Oh, and it’s fun, too.