How Success Works

How Success Works is an ideal lesson to teach what EcoTipping points are and how they work within the context of science, social studies, or English classes. This lesson is based on six flagship cases. While each case deals with a different environmental topic, all the cases display the same basic ingredients for success. Students read a short narrative for each case, identify ingredients for success in that story, and review the ingredients with a teacher-led PowerPoint. The same case can be used to understand the vicious cycles driving decline, and what it takes for an EcoTipping Point lever to overcome the vicious cycles. Then students see how vicious cycles are transformed into virtuous cycles that drive restoration.

The cases can be used individually or as a group, depending on teaching goals. All of the materials are easy to modify for the needs of your classroom. Below is one way to approach this multi-faceted lesson!

Suggested Procedure for “How Success Works”

Step 1: Show a short video on one of the success stories to quickly introduce students to the basic concept of EcoTipping Points. The Apo Island case is a good choice to start. It is a compelling story with a simplicity that clearly reveals the basic concept.

Step 2: Pass out a copy of the ‘Ingredients for Success’ handout and review the meaning of each ingredient. There are two levels available: a short version and an extended version, depending on the level of your course. The short version comes with frontloaded vocabulary for student comprehension.

Step 3: Choose one written success story to examine as a sample with the entire class before doing group work, jigsaws, or other methods. Depending on the reading level of your class, you can pass out the one-page or three-page story. Also pass out the Ingredients for Success worksheet for that case.

Step 4: Review the frontloading vocabulary at the top of the worksheet to improve comprehension. It may be useful for students to underline those words when they read them. The frontloaded vocabulary is also useful for assessment.

Step 5: Have students read the story and bullet point events, actions, or conditions on their worksheet that they associate with each ingredient for success.

Step 6: When students have completed their work, it can be reviewed as a whole class with the teacher-led PowerPoint presentation. The PowerPoint presentation has bullet-point notes that can be used as is or modified to meet your needs. There are also additional background notes for the instructor on the notes section of each slide, or on the Teacher Key for Ingredients. If you want to go on to teach diagramming of feedback loops with these cases, proceed to steps 7 and 8.

Step 7: After students have seen success in action, pass out a blank feedback diagram of the vicious and virtuous cycles for this success story. Explain the following ideas:

  • Negative tip – The downward spiral of decline
  • Negative tipping point – The action or event that sets a negative tip in motion
  • Positive tip – The upward spiral of restoration and sustainability
  • Positive tipping point (also called EcoTipping Point) – The action that sets a positive tip in motion by leveraging the reversal of decline

Ask the students to go back to their stories and mark the negative tipping point and positive tipping point. If they watched the short video, they will already have previewed this idea.

Step 8: Use the blank feedback diagrams for the students to map out the vicious cycles driving the negative tip in the story, and the virtuous cycles driving the positive tip. There is also a Teacher Keys for feedback diagrams with notes for teachers. Fill out the negative-tip diagram together, and then let the students try the positive-tip diagram on their own.

Instructional Materials

All the materials for two of our most instructive stories – Apo Island and New York Community Gardens – are available for download below. Most materials for the other cases are also available for download below, though some materials for those cases are still in preparation. The remaining materials will be posted soon. Please check back!

Apo Island: Saving a Fishery

A marine sanctuary at Apo Island in the Philippines set in motion community fisheries management that reversed a vicious cycle of destructive fishing and depletion of fish stocks, restoring the island’s coral reef ecosystem and rescuing a fishing village’s livelihood and wellbeing. Apo Island’s success has inspired 700 other fishing villages to establish marine sanctuaries. Main Page

New York City Community Gardens: Reversing Urban Decay

Community gardens in New York City reversed a vicious cycle of urban decay, crime-ridden empty lots, neglect, and population flight, while producing food, flowers, and wildlife habitat. These gardens nourished the bodies and souls of 800 neighborhoods, and inspired urban community gardening across the nation. Main Page

Additional Flagship Stories

Restoring Coastal Wetlands - Arcata (USA)

A constructed wetland at Arcata, California, provided low-cost municipal sewage processing along with first-class wildlife habitat and nature recreation in a setting where rapid urban sprawl was threatening to seriously damage their bay. Expansion of constructed wetlands to surrounding towns has changed urban development in a way that helps contain urban sprawl.

Reversing Tropical Deforestation - Thailand

Agroforestry and community forest management in Thailand reversed a vicious cycle of deforestation, watershed degradation, expensive agricultural inputs, debt, and population exodus. Community action simultaneously restored the local forests and ecological health of the watershed, securing people’s livelihoods with sustainable agriculture and reducing carbon dioxide emissions due to deforestation.

Escaping the Pesticide Trap - India

"Non-Pesticide Management" by cotton farmers in India employed ecological pest control methods to reverse a vicious cycle of pesticide resistance, heavier pesticide use, human pesticide poisoning, debt, and the highest suicide rate in India. This ecological technology has spread throughout Andhra Pradesh state, restoring household budgets and human health along with birds and insects that provide natural pest control.

Replenishing Aquifers - India

Traditional rainwater catchment dams in India reversed a vicious cycle of depleted aquifers, dried-up wells and rivers, fuel wood depletion, agricultural decline, and population exodus in an area the size of Delaware. This traditional technology was replicated in 800 villages and brought back water, trees, wildlife, family breadwinners who had sought income elsewhere, and a healthier life for the people.

Rescuing Coastal Mangrove Forests - Thailand

Community mangrove management in Thailand reversed a vicious cycle of mangrove destruction, coastal fisheries depletion, and local inhabitants forced into destructive economic practices as resources deteriorated – restoring mangrove habitat, coral reefs, coastal fisheries, and economic opportunities.

Sustainable Eradication of Mosquito-borne Disease - Vietnam

Biological control with tiny crustaceans called "cyclops" has eradicated the dengue mosquito in a thousand Vietnamese villages, turning around the spread of dengue hemorrhagic fever, a disease that has hospitalized hundreds of thousands of children every year.

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