Learning Systems Thinking by Using a Commercial Game

Abstract

Systems thinking is one of Peter Senge’s five diciplines (Senge, Kleiner et al., 2011, Senge, 1992) To see how incidents are tied together, can be valuable not only in organizations, but also in for example crisis training. Two commercial games are being tested in order to see if it is possible to get a better understanding of systems thinking within the scope of crisis training. The games are called Emergency 2016 developed by Sixteen Tons Entertainment, published by Deep Silver, and “911: First Responders”® or “Emergency 4: Global Fighters For Life First Response”, also developed by Sixteen Tons Entertainment, and published by Atari. The paper will discuss the learning outcome regarding Systems Thinking from playing these games, and suggest how they may be integrated in education.