Causal loop diagrams

Assignment 3: Causal loop diagrams (CLD)

Objective: This assignment is designed to help students identify and apply system thinking learned in this class to a real-world problem.

Tasks:

Pick a transportation problem (e.g., air port inefficiency, reduction in public transit ridership). You should come up with your own problem and draw your CLD, but it’s also OK to reuse my examples with revisions (e.g., add/remove variables, links, or loops; alter the diagrams in different ways) if you cannot think of new things.

Identify multiple components (I.e., causes and effects) related to this problem

Use a causal loop diagram to illustrate the interconnections among all of these components and your chosen transportation problem. (You may draw it on paper and take a picture)

Write a short essay (650-700 words), in which you:

Introduce the problem and why it’s important to understand or solve.

Insert and introduce your causal loop diagram.

Explain the rationale behind the links (causes and effects) in your causal loop diagram (e.g., drawing from theories/concepts that you learned in this class or other classes). Provide citations when appropriate.

From the diagram, identify negative and positive loops and how they informs the solutions/strategies to solve the problem (e.g., will you use certain policies or strategies to strengthen certain loops why reducing the effect of other loops? E.g., in my public transit example, I’d use land use policies to increase density in order to make transit more effective).