"No Monkeys, No Chocolate" and Systems Thinking

In this lesson students use a picture book to look for cause and effect relationships between biotic and abiotic factors in an ecosystems using systems thinking strategies. Students create a connection circle, then use that circle to create a feedback loop using the Loopy platform. This kind of activity puts the students in charge of sense making, and allows students to dig deeper into the relationships in ecosystems that may not be obvious to us, but are pivotal for the existence of resources like cocoa for chocolate.