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Karl Kreutz
School of Earth and Climate Sciences
Climate Change Institute
University of Maine
Karl is a professor in the School of Earth and Climate Sciences at the University of Maine, and teaches undergraduate courses at the intersection of climate, energy, and environmental change. He is also a member of the Climate Change Institute, an interdisciplinary research unit organized to conduct research and graduate education focused on variability of Earth's climate, ecosystems, and other environmental systems and on the interaction between humans and the natural environment.
Website Content Contributions
Course Modules (7)
Unit 3: Modeling a System part of Systems Thinking
This unit introduces systems modeling, which allows students to quantify and manipulate system components to create system responses. Students use a simple systems model of a bathtub to explore the effect of flow ...
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Course (1)
Karl Kreutz: Using Systems Thinking in Global Environmental Change at University of Maine part of Systems Thinking
My course focuses on the reservoir of atmospheric carbon dioxide – what controls it, how it has changed in the geologic past, how it is changing now and the role that humans have played in its evolution, the effects on Earth's energy balance, and potential future climate and environmental implications. Because these processes play out on a range of time and space scales, direct experimentation is difficult in an undergraduate setting. Systems thinking provides an ideal platform for understanding the flow of carbon between reservoirs, and for gaining an appreciation of how important the intersection of earth science and society is with respect to carbon, climate, and energy. Implementing this module made a dramatic difference in the class, improving student learning on everything from global models of the carbon cycle to the formation and flow of methane in our local peat bog.
Conference Presentation (1)
Earth Systems Thinking: An InTeGrate Module That Can Be Used In Any Course part of Rendezvous 2015:Program:Abstracts
One of the themes of the InTeGrate program's pedagogical approach is to foster systems thinking. The concept of systems thinking is addressed in individual InTeGrate modules designed to address specific ...