Using a Temporal Systems Thinking Framework to Design and Redesign a Biorefinery

An interactive and free-of-charge online platform, The Biorefinery Experience, was created using Xerte, a flexible template for creating interactive learning objects. Through this accessible site containing videos with transcripts and a range of questions to engage users, a systems thinking approach has been adopted to outline holistic and interconnected considerations in the design of a first-generation sugar cane biorefinery. Systems oriented concept map extension diagrams have been used extensively to assist learners in visualizing links between biorefineries to social, economic, and environmental interfaces. Users also design their own biorefinery using real data and then redesign a biorefinery as a function of time, demonstrating holistic system understanding, retrospection, and prediction. The Biorefinery Experience was implemented with 35 undergraduate students. Survey feedback demonstrated an enjoyable way to learn about biorefining while utilizing a whole systems approach, allowing students to consider real problems relating holistically and temporally to grand challenges (such as the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals).