ELearning and Digital Media Volume 7 Number 1 2010 www.wwwords.co.

uk/ELEA

Economists Who Think Like Ecologists: reframing systems thinking in games for learning
BEN DeVANE, SHREE DURGA & KURT SQUIRE University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA

ABSTRACT Over the past several years, educators have been exploring the potential of immersive interactive simulations, or video games for education, finding that games can support the development of disciplinary knowledge, systemic thinking, the production of complex multimodal digital artifacts, and participation in affinity spaces or sites of collective intelligence. Examining verbal interaction data from a game-based after-school program, the authors offer evidence that expert players of learning video games: (a) think relationally and strategically about elements of the game system; (b) draw on their experiences in similar activity domains when approaching systemic problems; (c) consider systemic properties as they are tied to action; and (d) think and act in markedly social ways while engaged in systems-oriented reasoning. Using discourse analysis, the authors examine the talk and game play of two participants to understand how they think about the relationships between elements of the game system. From these exchanges a kind of play emerges which contains the kinds of systemic thinking that educators might hope to find in twenty-first-century classrooms. There was evidence from students reasoning that the situated systems thinking in which they engage contains the reasoning and problem-solving strategies for complex economic, political and geographic systems that twenty-firstcentury classrooms might value.

Introduction In 2007 and 2008, world food prices rose dramatically. The price of diet staples like rice and wheat doubled, causing humanitarian crises in developing nations. Most economists agreed that the confluence of a general set of factors was probably to blame for the near-catastrophe: droughts in grain-producing nations caused by climate change, rising oil prices, imbalanced agricultural policies in developed nations among others. The nuances of the causes of this crisis can be staggeringly difficult to comprehend. For instance, rising oil prices increased costs of global food transportation, the use of agricultural industrial machinery and the price of oil-based fertilizers. At the same time, food-producing nations attempted to decrease oil costs by greatly subsidizing agricultural biofuels, which led farmers to grow crops for fuel rather than food. In this way government policies interacted with market and ecological fluctuations to drastically increase the price of food. Notable contemporary research has cautioned that such incongruence between large-scale economic practices and ecological systems can easily threaten the existence of human societies (Diamond, 2005). In response to the risks found in an increasingly interconnected global society, Lester Brown wrote that modern societies must rethink their understandings of social science, policy making and education: Today, more than ever before, we need leaders who can see the big picture, who understand the relationship between the economy and its environmental support systems ... we need economists who think like ecologists. Unfortunately they are rare (Brown, 2003, p. 23). If such emergent effects can boggle even trained policy makers, how then can citizens in democratic societies be expected to understand these complex systems in their political and economic 3
http://dx.doi.org/10.2304/elea.2010.7.1.3

Ben DeVane et al lives? Furthermore, how can educators and researchers teach their students to think critically about the complex interaction of these systems elements? Some learning scientists have claimed that video games can be vehicles for a form of design literacy that fosters sophisticated cognitive models and dispositions towards systems by gradually exposing players to the underlying structures built into them by designers. Hence, they show promise as a possible educational approach to systems (Gee, 2003; 2007; Games, 2008; cf. Kafai, 1995; Brown & Thomas, 2008).

Figure. 1. Causes of the world food crisis.

However, the research literature describing the contours of game-based systems thinking remains sparse. Game-based approaches to systems thinking have most often involved learners conducting virtual investigations in graphically rich three-dimensional worlds (or real worlds augmented by simulated data) so that participants understand a local ecosystem (Barab et al, 2007; Ketelhut et al, 2007; Squire & Jan, 2007). These approaches, while particularly valuable in that they tie into existing curricular standards and content areas, usually do not explicitly express systems thinking as a pedagogical goal, nor do they include specific references to systems concepts. This study examines verbal interaction data from a game-based after-school program that uses the Civilization game series to teach young people about materialist history. We offer evidence that expert players of learning video games: (a) think relationally and strategically about elements of the game system; (b) draw on their experiences in similar activity domains when approaching systemic problems; and (c) think and act in markedly social ways while engaged in systems-oriented reasoning. We see an unmistakable contrast between this very situated form of systems thinking and previous understandings of systems thinking in the research literature. Background Learning in Game-Based Environments Good video games are unique in that players must learn how the game system works in order to achieve success within it. In Civilization, for example, players must understand about the relationship between geographical conditions and food production to provide sustenance to their cities denizens (Squire, 2005). Activity in games can often be characterized by a cycle of activity: perceiving a problem, formulating a prediction about the games model of that problem, engaging in situated activity in an effort to solve the problem, and evaluating the relative success of the action undertaken (Gee, 2003; Young, 2004; Kafai, 2006). The result of a good game, then, is that players learn to infer the properties of its underlying relational model (or, put otherwise, its ideological world). As educators, we design experiences so that players learn to make inferences about those models and negotiate their meanings within real-world social and cultural systems (Squire, 2006). 4

Reframing Systems Thinking in Games for Learning Gee (2007) argues that games are powerful tools for helping players develop embodied empathy for such complex systems. That is, by placing players within a system in which they interact, they have the potential for developing students intuitions of how they operate. In the case of Civilization, this argument was described similarly by Ted Friedman (1999), who suggested that one of the primary joys of Civilization playing is learning to think with, and even within the computer system. While scholarship on games holds that the pleasure of game play is tied to how we think, learn and play in highly leveraged and resourced digital systems, the nuances of how we learn and think with these game-based systems of meaning have yet to be explored in the literature. There have been first-hand phenomenological accounts of ones own game play or studies of how learning within game-based curricula tie to more traditional academic goals, but there exists little interest in understanding how such learning experiences apply toward contemporary geopolitical issues.[1] Theoretical Framework: systems thinking Systems Thinking Across different fields of social science research systems thinking is a term used to denote an approach to understanding complex phenomena and problems that considers how elements of an order relate to each other and the function of the order as a whole (cf. Checkland, 1981; Senge, 1990; Banathy, 1991; Reigeluth & Garfinkle, 1994; Forrester, 1997; Squire & Reigeluth, 2000). While scholars from different research traditions have examined how humans think with complex representational systems of meaning, there exists no clear consensus on how scholars should approach the topic of study, nor even the precise nature of systems thinking. While studies have generally described how systems thinking works in game-based learning communities (Kafai, 1995; Squire, 2003; Gee, 2005), we seek a less ambiguous description of systems thinking that takes into account prior, related research in the fields of general systems theory, cognitive sciences and the learning sciences. General Systems Theory The phrase systems thinking has been most used by scholars who are schooled in, or affiliate with, the general systems theory tradition of organizational and sociological research (see Squire & Reigeluth [2000] for a brief history of these ideas in educational reform). These scholars use the term systems thinking to interchangeably describe: (a) a mode of cognition that that has arisen in response to complex environments of modern societies; (b) a way of solving problems and studying natural phenomena; and (c) a means of understanding (and managing) the operation of large human organizations and institutions (Checkland, 1981; Senge, 1990; Banathy, 1991; Reigeluth & Garfinkle, 1994). It is important to note that this scholarship views these three aspects of systems thinking as inherently interconnected e.g. more systemic methods of scientific investigation and real-world problem solving will give rise to more systemic forms of human organization and vice versa. For the most part, however, this systems thinking scholarship shares a common theoretical foundation. Systems thinking starts from noticing the unquestioned Cartesian assumption: namely, that a component part is the same when separated out as it is when part of a whole (Checkland, 1981, p. 12). In such a view, a systemic approach uses a holistic understanding of systems, which emphasizes the relationships between parts of the system relative to the function of the system as a whole, to both structure problem solutions in everyday activity and scientific investigation. However, this emphasis on holistic understanding exists in uneasy tension alongside the fields functionalist roots in hierarchy theory and general systems theory (Ulrich, 1988). Because it is rooted in the functionalism of general systems theory (see Boulding, 1956; Simon, 1962), the systems thinking literature has the odd distinction of emphasizing holistic approaches to problem solving while prescribing reductionist systems heuristics for problem solving that are uprooted from their everyday contexts of use (see Lave, 1988). These problem-solving heuristics are held to be generalizable in the systems thinking literature they work across and in spite of contexts, activities and knowledge domains (see Checkland, 1981). 5

Ben DeVane et al Cognition as Predictive Modeling Contemporary cognitive science research has drawn incrementally closer to these perspectives on learning with complex systems, as research argues that humans are always cognitively simulating the consequences of action in their social and material worlds (Wolpert & Kawato, 1998; Barsalou, 1999; Glenberg & Robertson, 2000). This framework for understanding cognition, alternately called grounded cognition and embodied cognition, argues that the mind is constantly making embodied predictions about the world to better grasp the possibilities for and results of action. These predictions are grounded in a persons experiences in a given activity and their model of the relationship between elements in the world related to their potential actions (Barsalou, 1999). Because good video games present players with clearly structured goals, problems to solve to accomplish that goal, indications of a solution path and clear feedback on a players solution, they are learning artifacts that fit relatively well with grounded cognitions view of the simulation-based mind (Gee, 2007). Learning about Systems through Play and Design At the same time research in the learning sciences has independently emphasized the importance of understanding concepts as elements in interconnected webs of meaning related patterns, processes and elements instead of abstract, self-contained symbolic structures (Papert, 1980; Burton et al, 1984; Brown et al, 1989; New London Group, 1996). From this perspective, concepts should be taught and understood according to their relationship to other elements in a given situation and their function in an activity. In other words, a piece of knowledge is best learned in relation to other, connected conceptual elements and best understood according to what they can do in a given situation (diSessa, 1988). When it comes to the question of how best to learn about systems, research in the learning sciences has two distinct, but overlapping, prescriptions for systems-oriented learning practices. For the most part, learning sciences research related to systems thinking has, drawing on constructivist perspectives, found that formal design activities help students build more robust understandings of academic knowledge domains and practices (Perkins, 1986; Kafai, 1995; Kolodner et al, 1998; Games & Squire, 2008). The core idea here is that by building (often times dynamic) representations of systems, learners come to understand the relationships among sub-components of systems. A second branch of scholarship focuses on situated experiences within simulated systems, hypothesizing that acting in a simulated system (particularly when learners have goals within such rule-based systems) helps learners develop meta-understandings of the meaningmaking model underlying the system (see Papert, 1980; Schn, 1983; Gee, 2003; Squire, 2005). However, little empirical research exists that details the nature of systems thinking in game-based learning environments. Most often such studies, working in the contexts of schools, have focused more explicitly on traditional academic standards. Methodology We seek in this article to better understand how young gamers think, act and feel in relation to game-based systems of meaning that they inhabit. As such, we adopt the framework of discourse analysis, which is both a theory and a method for studying how language gets recruited on site to enact specific social activities and social identities (Gee, 1999, p. 1; see also Fairclough, 1995). Using discourse analysis, we seek to better understand what the language that these game players use reveals about how they are thinking relationally about the game system, how they are acting within the game space and how they see themselves in relation to the social space surrounding their game-based activity (see Steinkuehler, 2006). Because language is an important means through which people coherently structure and systematize their experiences and activities (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980), we examine the talk and game play of two participants in a game of Civilization IV to understand how they think about the relationships between elements of the game system. We elaborate on some of the key cues that signal how systemic thinking occurs through symbolic (language in game) and gestural (performance in game) usage of language (Levinson, 1983).

Reframing Systems Thinking in Games for Learning This data was collected through three means: video- and audio-recording of participants game play, field notes taken by researchers, and game logs of major events and occurrences. Naturalized transcription was employed for the video-recording in order to capture not just what was said, but also, how it was said. The data excerpt in the following section is represented using Jeffersonian transcript notation revealing sequential features of talk, rise or fall of intonation, abrupt halt or pause, emphasized speech, reduced or increased volume, etc., in order to depict accurate (or closest approximations of) the perceptions and meaning articulated during the data collection (Cameron, 2001; Oliver et al, 2005). Research Background This article emerges from data collected during a longitudinal four-year design-based research study of a history-based after-school gaming club for young people aged nine through 14. Past studies of this club have examined how players make the transition from users to designers (Squire et al, 2005) and how individual players develop distinct trajectories of expertise relative to their knowledge of the game and history (Squire et al, 2008). Throughout the course of our research consisting of ethnographic observation, focus group interviews and task-based assessments we observed that expert players approach to in-game problems was conceptual and systemic rather than procedural (Squire et al, 2005; DeVane & Durga, 2008). This data features an interaction between two long-time program participants who had mastered Civilization III (Civ3), and now sought to master Civilization IV (Civ4). One of these Civ3 experts, 13-year-old P2, is playing the sequel, Civ4, for the first time. He is assisted by P1, another 13-year-old expert Civ 3 player who volunteered to interview him, and by L1, an adult who is serving as a game facilitator for the club. P1, who has a meager two-hours experience playing the game (which easily takes hundreds of hours to master), is attempting to inhabit the role of an adult researcher like L1. As such, he is video-recording P2s game play, asking on-the-spot questions to try to ascertain the reasons for P2s in-game actions and trying to act as a mentor to P2. L1, who is supervising and assisting nine other players with their games, intermittently interjects with questions and advice.

Figure 2. Mechanics of the health system in Civilization IV.

Ben DeVane et al The Problem Context P2 is playing a game mod, which is a modification of the game that has somewhat different mechanics, rules and themes, themed around European conquest and colonization of the Americas. In this mod, players can lead either a European colonial power or an indigenous American society in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries as they negotiate the economic, military and social issues of the day. P2 has chosen this mod to play because it thematically resembles his favorite Civ3 mod. This data reproduces the talk and actions of the two young players, and sometimes the adult facilitator L1, as they try to solve a problem confronting P2. One of P2s in-game cities, Plymouth, England, has become unhealthy. This new municipal health mechanic (a set of game rules that structure play) had been introduced in Civ4 and was not present in previous games in the series (like Civ3). In the game, as cities grow in population and industrialize, they become more and more unhealthy places to live. Players can mitigate these unhealthy factors in cities by building improvements like aqueducts and hospitals, connecting their cities to areas rich in certain food resources like wildlife and livestock or establishing their cities near bodies of fresh water. As this is P2s first, and P1s second, encounter with this fairly complex game mechanic again, it had not been in any previous games that they had played they had very limited problem schema available to shape a solution.

Figure 3. Unhealthiness in P2s Plymouth.

Results Problem Solving in Relational Systems In an effort to characterize the nature of systems thinking with video games, we examine the inclinations and approaches of P1 and P2 as they formulate solutions to problems that confront them in their game play. As P1 and P2 try to solve the problem of how to improve the municipal health of their city, they explore the connections between the different relational elements of the game system that are connected to the problem. This problem-solving process is an iterative one, as the two continually encounter a way in which their solution will not work given the state of the game system, and subsequently create new solution paths. In this interaction, the two players create and test three distinct solution paths: (1) building transport routes to food resource-rich areas near to their city; (2) using North American colonies in resource-rich areas to supply their resourcepoor English cities with food; and (3) constructing city improvements that increase residents health. 8

Reframing Systems Thinking in Games for Learning Three trends emerge from our analysis of the players problem-solving practices in the game system. First, instead of generating solution paths from general systems thinking formalisms, the players solutions to problems confronting them in the game system are assembled on the spot from their own past game play experiences (in Civ 3), individual knowledge of history, and available social and material knowledge resources (a history book, in-game tools and a program facilitator). Second, the players exhibit a remarkable ability to leverage new information about both the importance of individual game elements and the relationships between game elements to formulate new solutions. Third, the problem-solving process of the two players is highly social in nature characterized by collaborative activity, performance of distinct social identities and bids to be recognized as experts within the gaming community.

Figure 4. The dearth of health resources in England.

Solution 1: relational thinking and experience. The two participants quickly arrived at a solution where they would find food resources in the countryside close to the ailing city and build a route connecting the two areas, which would provide the city with bonus health points by bringing in fresh food. However, when they tried to find a food resource on the well-populated British Isles, they began to realize their proposed solution was problematic. As they explored the area surrounding the city, they saw that such food resources did not exist anywhere in Englands territory. In fact, P1 had to look to other countries to find an instance of such a resource to illustrate to P2 what he was talking about:
P1:Um (.) lets move over here to (.) the Netherlands. who apparently arent doing all that well. Hmm so this is the French. Uhm (.) see like (.) If you have Deer you can get HuntingBut (.) here look in your book and see what food sources are around your cities.

Follow-up interviews revealed that their erroneous prediction was grounded in their previous experiences playing Civ 3 game mods. These scenarios represented Scotland and Ireland as sparsely inhabited resource farms that can supply heavily populated southern England with natural resources. This, however, was not the case in this Civ 4 game scenario. In fact, there were no food 9

Ben DeVane et al resources that would give their city a health bonus in the whole of the overpopulated British Isles (health bonuses disappear as areas become overpopulated or land is deforested). Instead of trying to verbally instruct P2 how to improve his citys health, P1 found a healthimproving resource wildlife represented by a picture of a deer and began to explain how P2 might use that resource to improve the citys health. He started to explain that P2 could use the Hunting technology (also called a civilization advance) to utilize that resource square. However, he interrupted himself and resumed collaborating with P2 to try to find a more immediate solution to the problem at hand. This straightforward solution path was grounded in an understanding of the games model of the relationship between food supply and health in urban areas.

Figure 5. Section of a fan-created Excel resource chart.

Solution 2: socially and materially situated systems thinking. P1 and P2 looked for bonus food resources near the ailing city which would solve the problem, but were unable to find any. Next, they turned to external sources of information namely a textbook that one happened to have on hand to search for health-boosting resources:
P1: But (.) here look in your book and see what food sources are around your cities. P2: Where? Where in the book? P1: See what food sources might be around Spain (indicates P2s land in Normandy) P2: [Mmmmmm. Oh (.) oh] this is a US book.

Because it was a US history textbook, P2s book did not contain information about resources near P2s cities in England or in Normandy (which P1 calls Spain) that would help them implement solution path 1. However, use of this artifact did help them generate two new ideas about possible solutions: using North American colonies for food, or trading for food on the global market. These ideas involved more elaborate understandings of the game system to attempt to solve the health problem, integrating multiple subsystems (namely, trade routes, diplomacy, and the requisite technologies for supporting them):
P2: So (.) it still tells like (.) what resources (.) (looking through history textbook for resources in North America) P1: Well if you have a trade route you can trade P2: Ummmm.

As P2 had not yet explored inland North America in-game, he could not see in-game what resources were located there and was using the textbook as a sort of cheat for predicting what sorts of resources it might contain (cf. Squire, 2005). P2 became quiet and pensive for a period of 10

Reframing Systems Thinking in Games for Learning time, as he examined his book for food resources near his North American colonies, contemplating how to ship those resources back to his city (an involved, multi-step process that requires creating settlers, building ships, transporting the settlers, founding a new city, defending the city, building harbors, and making sure he had the technologies required for trading over the open ocean, as detailed below). P1, meanwhile, offered a different solution path, based around the game mechanic of trade routes. Trade routes in the game are sea- or land-based routes between cities that allow civilizations to trade resources with their neighbors. P2, however, showed little enthusiasm for the idea and instead continued to look for resources in North America that he could ship back to England to increase the health of his cities (note the similarities between this scenario and those involved in contemporary food shortages):
Off-topic cross talk between P1 and other participants: P2: [to L1] Umm (.) Im trying to find out what resources or [food I can yeah= L1: Food?] L1: Something you might find= you might find that if you can get a harbor (.) or something and trade back= P1: [Fish! P2! Fish! Fish! L1: You can trade (.) yeahIf youIf you] get a good bunch of stuff kicking in North America maybe you can trade back. P2: Mmmk (.) I have [fish L1: Like you have] sheep there You have some fish Youll need to get a uh= P2: A worker. L1: Yeah and youll need to get a uh (.) inside that trade network.

Unsure of this nascent solution, P2 asked the program facilitator, L1, for help elaborating the solution path. Synthesizing the different ideas put forward by P1 and P2, L1 advised that P2 should trade resources internally between his overseas English colonies in North America and domestic cities in Britain. That the players have little patience with the facilitators explanation indicates that the concept of mercantile trade between colonies and their mother country was a solution path that was not far beyond the competency or understanding of the players. As L1 put forward an outline of a solution, P1 interrupted and pointed out the presence of a food resource. P2, meanwhile, had already begun quietly looking for food resources near his colonies in North America before the facilitator could specify that he should investigate that area. By the time L1 finished his broad outline of a solution, P2 had already begun fleshing out the details of the solution path he had located two food resources and begun building the necessary units (workers). A few minutes later, P2 began constructing a route to the food resource using a worker unit, and researching the Astronomy technology that would enable his ships to carry food across the ocean. This solution was notable in that participants used social and material resources to extemporaneously generate new solution paths that reflected their improved understanding of the relationships between system components. Solution 3: adaptation and systems thinking. The solution presented above would have eventually helped mitigate the unhealthiness that arose from Englands population density. However, it was not the only solution to the problem of unhealthiness, nor was it the quickest. While he was waiting on his colonies to develop the infrastructure (a pasture, road, and harbor) necessary to

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Ben DeVane et al harvest and transport the nearby food resources, P2 began to construct the Grocers, a city improvement that increases the health bonus of certain food resources:
P2: Im trying to build more Grocers in cities tryin not to get people sick Smallpox can-can wipe England out.

Health, as it is represented in a game, is a variable to which many other variables contribute. In other words, the relative health of a civilization is evaluated by a complex formula of many variables. P2 was trying to resolve his problem with unhealthiness in his cities by manipulating two such variables food resources and city improvements. P2 had decided to build the Grocers after he had thoroughly read the tooltip descriptions that appeared when he placed his mouse over possible city improvements. P2 was not simply thinking about the game system, but also using the available reference tools to think with the game about the relevant problem space. In building a narrative of game events, P2 also spontaneously connected this phenomenon to that of smallpox epidemics in England, one that he had presumably learned about elsewhere. This form of play, which we have called historiographic play, is a primary pleasure of gaming for many participants and further evidence of how game play can mobilize understandings (see Durga & Squire, 2008). Social Identity and Systems Thinking The manner in which P1 and P2 approach problems in their Civ 4 game play has much to do with their expert identity relative to the Civ 3 game title. Their expert identities in this historical gaming community encouraged them to be confident as they solved problems, allowed them to gain status in their peers eyes, and gave them a stake in the maintenance of the activity group. The subtext of status and identity are pervasive throughout their conversations. P1, in particular, was attempting to inhabit the role of expert by acting as a researcher and trying to establish himself as a Civ4 mentor to P2. Though he had only played the game for two hours, P1 methodically used language to selfnominate himself as an expert-mentor in his interactions with P2. Unexpectedly, this often resulted in a productive cooperation between the two in addressing the problem as P1 quickly taught P2 to use the game interface:
P1: Oh (.) well (.) yeah fine (.) here watch Here Ill show you way to get some food. Alright what you want to do (.) is you wanna first (.) click here. and then you wanna click on this <and then it tells you where everything is> and you wanna find food sources like cows and other such items and connect them and connect all your cities together with this

P1 used several different communicative devices to make himself visible as an expert relative to P2 in the above passage. First, he used quite a few deictic expressions to situate the interface tools within the larger problem context (see Levinson, 1983). Second, P1 enacted an expert identity through declarative, interrogative and imperative designations of grammar (Halliday & Martin, 1993, p. 27). These language-based methods of identity enactment persisted as P1 advised P2 where to look for food resources:
P1: So like up here, lets see. oh so this is up by Germany you have cities over here too Well what you wanna do is you wanna look up in Germanys area= P2: Scotland. P1: Scotland? Yeah Scotland.

Even as P1s bid to display his historical knowledge failed, the significance of this exchange with regard to identity is that he made such a bid at all. P1 is trying here to establish to P2 his fluency 12

Reframing Systems Thinking in Games for Learning with historical language, and thus nominate himself as an expert within the community. P1, perhaps feeling a bit anxious that his expertise might be called into question in the aftermath of his solutions failure, immediately endeavored to find a food resource elsewhere and show how his solution would work with that resource. P1 then paused the problem-solving activity to engage in a face-saving exercise by redirecting the interaction (see Goffman, 1967). By instructing P2 step by step how to go about linking his cities with nearby food resources, P1 moves the conversation away from a discussion of his lapses in historical and geographical knowledge, and again renominates himself as an expert or mentor to P2. Discussion Systems Thinking as Relational Thinking This design-based research study has sought to produce, and then study in context, how complex forms of systemic thinking forms and evolves in situ. These data points illustrate how the formation of such complex systemic thinking, at least in this example, arises at the intersection of the material affordances of the Civilization game, and the social contexts in which play is situated. Knowledge of complex systems is employed as tools-for-action, or as ways of achieving goals at the material, personal and social planes, or as Nitsche (2008) would describe it, at the game as action on screen, the game as a model in the players mind, and in the social game unfolding in real time and space. The process of learningthinkingdoing described here can be described as a collective process of trying to simultaneously understand the primary properties of the game system (e.g. the rules as inscribed in the game) and the second-order emergent effects (e.g. the relative speed at which health can be increased via obtaining food from trade networks vs. building grocers). This inquiry process of trying to make sense of indeterminate systems is reminiscent of Deweys pragmatist account of scientific inquiry, in which he wrote that, with regard to complex problems, understanding or interpretation is a matter of the ordering of those materials that are ascertained to be facts; that is, determination of their relations (1938, p. 511), or, in other words, how various elements work together toward combining solutions that work in the world (1938, p. 511). More recent investigations into systems thinking in a number of fields from general systems theory to the learning sciences have reached similar conclusions, namely that the ability to understand the relations among elements in a system of meaning is critical for participation in todays society. In the interaction examined above, a clear pattern of thinking in which P1 and P2 go about iteratively ordering and understanding the relations of elements in the game system is evident. In seeking to build a solution schema for the problem of unhealthiness in their cities, P1 and P2 navigate the games detailed relational model of urban health, resource use and colonial trade. However, the game play in this context is a deeply interpretive act, far more complex than simply one of importing the game model into the players head. The manner in which P1 and P2 learn with and think about the problems that confront them in the game system, however, diverges at times from established notions of systems thinking in the literature in that its deeply socially situated. The systems thinking seen in this interaction is mediated by the immediate context for the activity, grounded in similar prior experiences of the participants, distributed across social and material knowledge resources in the setting, and shaped by their identities and discourse affiliations. We call this articulation of relational thought situated systems thinking to distinguish it from amodal and decontextualized descriptions in prior research. An approach to situated systems thinking, of course, draws on prior research and adds nuance to the topic, rather than invalidates it. Building on the prior researchs emphasis on relationships between system elements and the function of the system as a whole (see Checkland, 1981), we argue that studies of systems thinking in game-based learning environments should also account for participants experiential knowledge, the tools that structure and support systems thinking, and the (social, physical and discursive) domains in which activity occurs (see Dewey, 1938; Lave, 1988; Gee, 1989; Glenberg, 1997). In the above interactions, systems thinking is thoroughly mediated by these situated social dynamics, instead of existing only as an abstract and amodal heuristic for problem solving.

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Ben DeVane et al Systems Thinking is Distributed across Tools and People. As they collaboratively make sense of how health bonus resources are modeled in the game, and how such resources can be used by civilizations, P1 and P2 must understand how the different ingame micro-systems that they encounter can be used to solve their problem. These overlapping micro-systems include: urban population health, use of resources local to cities, trade of resources between nations, and trade of resources across oceans. In order to solve the problem immediately confronting them, P1 and P2 have to act within and through different, interrelated, in-game structural activity schemes that model how human societies interact with the natural world and each other. As P1 and P2 collaboratively use their experiences as game players, interact with in-game informational tools that scaffold activity, and draw on external knowledge resources to solve the problem of unhealthiness, a clear pattern of interaction with the game system emerges. Time after time, they make informed guesses about the game system that are grounded in a particular social or material knowledge resource (e.g. past play experiences, in-game tools, history books, schoolbased historical knowledge, etc.) and test the correctness of those predictions in the game world. As such, the players had their own mental model of the game system, background information about history, and related dispositions for acting within that system all of which are driven by their goals and realized through action. After acting on a prediction within the system, they use the resulting feedback from the game to formulate their next solution prediction. Systems Thinking is Grounded in Experience The notion that players are making predictions about the consequences of action within a system of making bets about how the world will respond to an act (Holmes, 1993; Malaby, 2008) finds antecedent in contemporary psychological literature. Research from the grounded cognition paradigm argues that humans are always mentally mapping the projectable properties of our environment and, given a particular goal, its possibilities for that goal-oriented action (Glenberg, 1997; Wolpert et al, 2003). At the same time, we frequently make predictions about the consequences of action relative to our goals. Similarly, we see P1 and P2 learning about the properties of the game system (their environment) by taking action according to a theory they have about the system, and seeing if the two align. Action in the system reveals the relative incongruence of the players theory of the system and the extant operation of the system itself. Situated systems thinking, however, is grounded not just in making predictions about the properties and dynamics of a system, but also the development of understanding and intuitions about the system. This view is indebted to Gees (2007) contention that good video games help players develop an embodied empathy for the function of and relations between elements in a system. But what happens when players are taken out of the context in which they have developed expertise? Does situated systems thinking, as a mode of thought, extend across different activity contexts? Systems Thinking in Context The question, Does game-based systems thinking transfer across activity contexts? is one that will inevitably be asked. Based upon the data we have presented here and published elsewhere (see Squire et al, 2008; DeVane & Durga, 2008), there is some evidence of continuity of systems-oriented cognitive strategies across activities and contexts that we recognize as the foundation of a systems disposition. Evidence for this continuity can be found in players enlisting school-based resources such as textbooks in the service of game play, or in their developing narratives to make sense of the game model that include real-world referents (such as smallpox wiping out the population of England). Such a movement of cognitive resources, narratives, and concepts across contexts is quite commonplace in the club, as we have reported here and elsewhere (see especially DeVane et al, 2009). We purposely eschew the use of the term transfer to describe this continuity of cognitive practices as it tends to dissociate cognition from the contexts the communities, discourses, tools and situations in which it is embedded. 14

Reframing Systems Thinking in Games for Learning From a situated learning perspective, there are several issues with looking for the complete and comprehensive transfer of systemic knowledge across contexts. First, transfer research, and arguably the very notion of transfer, removes cognition from the activities, forms and contexts in which it takes place and to which it is inextricably tied (Lave, 1988). Moreover, it presumes that cognition is centered in the individual and that it has a consistent internal structure. Second, the term transfer makes invisible how comparably specific the differences are between the measured activities, settings and contexts. For instance, our research compares activities (e.g. Civ3 play to Civ4 play, Civ3 play to map-based civilization tasks, etc.) that are fairly similar and share some specific elements aside from their shared physical and social settings. Participants enlist previous experiences (whether they are from school-based learning experiences, previous games at camp, or from watching a History Channel documentary the night before) toward understanding new situations. While we understand situated systems thinking to be strongly tied to the relevant distributed sets of structuring resources for an activity (Lave, 1988; cf. Bourdieu, 1977), we do not see it as limited to isolated learning contexts and tethered entirely to the arena of an activity. Instead, we imagine that, given the right scaffolding and structure in a learning community, participants who become proficient with systems thinking practices in a game-based learning context can develop a systems disposition towards different problem contexts. Such a disposition is not a universal heuristic for inquiry like that espoused in earlier works, but it is a set of attitudes toward systems that can be seen to be interconnected in a general way (Thomas & Brown, 2007, p. 156). This systems disposition is the generative mechanism for situated systems thinking to occur in a context it is the inclination and demeanor required for a person to use available resources to structure a problem in a systemic way. As such, we understand game-based learning communities as arenas where participants will gain embodied experiences with emergent complex systems that can be leveraged for future academic learning. One limitation of the Civ-based approach to teaching systems thinking from this perspective is that the game itself does not include systems-type concepts (such as positive feedback loops, or irreversibility of conditions), which might be important in other complex systems, such as ecology or game design. This study (like others with Civilization) indicates some evidence for participants developing intuitions of such ideas; however, one could imagine a well-integrated learning curriculum around systems thinking that involves players identifying and labeling such concepts ingame, reinforcing them through participants using them as tools to analyze game play (and solve problems, much as happens here in discussion), and then applied to new, divergent scenarios. Consistent with a situated approach, however, we caution against simply introducing systems concepts and then thinking that participants will magically apply them across situations, just as learning scientists have long noted that teaching algebra does not mean that people enlist these ideas in other aspects of their lives with any regularity (Lave, 1988; Lave & Wenger, 1991). Social Identity and Systems Thinking Research over the past three decades has made clear that learning is a very social phenomenon that is deeply rooted in social languages, tied to social activities, and occurring in relation to social institutions (Scribner & Cole, 1981; Gumperz, 1982; Engestrm, 1987; Gee, 1989). Learning is closely tied to a persons identity how a person sees themself in relation to a social group, social institution, social activity or set of social values (Gee, 1996). As such, people learn best when they feel that the role available to them in a learning activity is both valued by others in their activity group and in alignment with their interests and values. This phenomenon is clearly at work in these examples, and it is in the interaction among individual/personal goals, the game space, and the social plane in which learning is most robust. If the values, structures and relationships of activities of communities of practice guide the development of expert practices, competencies and dispositions in a given social activity (Lave & Wenger, 1991), then the particularities of this context as a unique learning community should also be acknowledged. We have argued here that expert identities are formed from relevant material and social knowledge resources, and strategically performed in situated social contexts, and are critical for accounting how systemic understandings arise (Wenger, 1999). Expertise, then, is the 15

Ben DeVane et al performance of a certain identity in a culturally-devised activity system and the ratification of that identity by the activity community, and this study illustrates how the particular identities available to participants constrain and make possible different forms of systemic understandings (Cazden, 1981; Holland, 1992; Gee, 2003). Thus, the relational, systems-oriented way that the participants approach problems in the game did not occur in a social vacuum it emerged from the (expert) identities that they inhabited, the social relationships of the group, and the moment-to-moment interactions among the participants. P1, for example, appeared to put significant effort into displaying his nascent understanding of the relational game system because such a performance would afford him more status in that particular discourse group. In a similar manner, L1 provided P1 and P2 with support that enabled them to problem solve at a level that was above their familiarity with game play details. The systemic structures of meaning-making present in the interaction emerge not just out of the players experiences with game play and the game tools with which they interact, but also the dynamic social resources and interactions that flow through the activity space. Conclusion One of the key challenges in weaving twenty-first-century themes, such as global awareness, financial, economic, business and entrepreneurial literacy into core subject areas is that these emerging fields are interdisciplinary in nature (see twenty-first-century framework for learning). They do not fit neatly into any traditional academic area and indeed, problems in these emerging fields are deeply distributed across multiple people and groups; they transcend the capacities of individual minds and often demand collaborative problem solving within decentralized and dispersed sources of information. How do we then reconcile the need for young people to learn how to comprehend and think critically about relational, morphologic elements that constitute these complex systems? We argue in this article not for such game-based learning communities as any sort of magic bullet for producing such systemic thinkers, but rather, we envision the emergence within these spaces of a kind of play which contains the kinds of systemic thinking that educators might hope to find in such twenty-first-century classrooms. We find evidence from students reasoning here that while the designers of a game like Civilization might not have had the sort of explicit agenda that would use the design of the game as a vehicle to teach systems thinking, Gees perspective that good video games can move players to a perspective of games as designed systems (2003) holds for both the game and the world phenomena it represents, as the thinking participants engage in contains the morphologic elements and the kinds of complex relationships among economic, political and geographic systems that such calls for twenty-first-century classrooms might value. This sort of thinking seems simultaneously deeply situated, embodied and dispositional. It is difficult to imagine P2 developing such systemic knowledge in a more static medium; the kind of thinking described here is full of multiple cycles of questions and answers, of multiple forms of interrogating the game system to consider how it responds. As expert players navigate the highly dynamic game environment of Civilization IV, they engage in practices that are unique to the medium of games and are radically different from learning in formal settings where the framework and organization of resources needed to accomplish the task are predisposed and fixed. How, then, will participants leverage these uniquely systemic experiences for life in an increasingly complex world? Situated systems thinking is also profoundly social, and constructed around opportunities for being an expert. This article has extensively focused on the mechanisms of expertise in action, information seeking as a source for action and the socially constructed identity of being an expert. Because mastery of complex organizations of content knowledge is empowering in games, it naturally promotes players inquisitiveness to garner information resources beyond the game. Cognition in games, from a Peircean view, is a dynamic interaction of structured knowledge and experience within complex semiotic spaces (Peirce, [1878] 1998). Thinking and the nature of reasoning in such complex systems is triadic (see symbol/index/icon, Peirce, [1878] 1998, p. 247). Triadic divisions pervade semiotic spaces in games, making them rich sites for learning through

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Reframing Systems Thinking in Games for Learning experimenting with truth or knowledge that is refutable through a continuing process of interpretation. As such, the development of game-based situated systemic thinking appears to be both materially and socially situated in a manner that conjures a pragmatic theory of knowing (see Peirce, [1878] 1998; Dewey, 1938; Holmes, 1993), one that emphasizes that our thinking especially complex systems thought is fundamentally functional, grounded in the material problems of the moment, and also deeply social, expressed through social enterprise. As learning scientists studying game play, we see the power of interlocking morphological complex systems within complex social environments to support and sustain this kind of meaningful identity work. As game scholars studying learning, we are reminded of the critical importance of going beyond the construction of a particular game, or even an individuals interactions with the computer, but investigating play in its most robust, complex forms. Acknowledgements The authors would like to thank the MacArthur Foundation for their support of this work. In addition, we would like to thank James Paul Gee, who (yet again) provided the original spark of an idea that this article is based on. Hopefully we did it justice. Note
[1] An exception to this can be found in Squire & Giovanetto (2008), a cognitive ethnography of Apolyton University which found evidence for advanced participants applying concepts from Civilization game play to contemporary events; however, conducted at a distance, this study did not investigate whether such thinking unfolded as a part of play in situ.

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BEN DeVANE is a doctoral candidate in the Educational Communications & Technology program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His current research is on the role of social identity in game-based learning environments. His work has appeared in E-Learning, Games & Culture, and Theory into Practice. Correspondence: Ben DeVane, Department of Curriculum & Instruction, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 225 N. Mills Street, Madison, WI 53706, USA (ben,devane@gmail.com). KURT SQUIRE is an associate professor of educational communications and technology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is also co-director of the Games+Learning+Society Program and Associate Director of Educational R & D at the Wisconsin Institutes of Discovery. Correspondence: Kurt Squire, Department of Curriculum & Instruction, University of WisconsinMadison, 225 N. Mills Street, Madison, WI 53706, USA (kurt.squire@gmail.com). SHREE DURGA is a doctoral student in the Educational Communications & Technology program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her doctoral research is centered primarily on game modding and examining what and how players learn through continued participation in complex programming practices within these modding communities. Correspondence: shree.durga@gmail.com

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