Background information
- Early in the 1950’s the Dayak people of Borneo were suffered form an outbreak of disease, malaria. They asked help from The World Health Organization (WHO). Without thinking through all the consequences, WHO sprayed the area with DDT to kill the mosquitoes that caused the disease. The mosquitoes died, and the malaria lessened.
- However, the DDT also killed the wasps that eat the caterpillar, therefore, the caterpillar population grow and ate the roofs. The roofs collapse.
- Many insects were poisoned by DDT. The geckoes eat those insects, and the cats eat those geckoes, and therefore, many cats died. This causes the rats population to increase, and more problems as well. The rats eat the grains and spread the typhus and plaques.
- Dayak people asked WHO to help again, WHO then send 14,000 parachuting cats to Borneo.
How is systems thinking essential and important in researches and decision-making processes?
- System thinking means interconnected of the whole system; looking at big picture. It’s the process of understanding how one component of a system can influence anything within a system. It’s important in researches and decision-making processes because it helps us to view things from a broad perspective, therefore we could identify or predict the real causes of issues, and so we could fix it. In daily life, we also require systems thinking. Whenever, we making any decision, we need to think as whole, think about the causes that might happen, in order to avoid facing problems later on.
Visual supports
NATWELLS :) 