IB Digital Society 2.6A Systems and System Thinking Key Definitions

When a system as a whole shows behaviour or patterns that none of its individual parts have on their own, so the whole is more than the sum of its parts.

A cycle in which the output of a system feeds back to affect its own input, either amplifying the change (reinforcing) or pushing back to keep the system steady (balancing).

A way to think about structure and order in human, natural and built environments.

Effects of a change to a system that its designers did not plan or expect, which arise because the parts of a system are interconnected in ways that are hard to foresee.