Around 30 students accompanied by their teachers from the Japanese International School in Vienna will visit IIASA on 19 January 2024 to learn about IIASA, its history, and get an overview on systems thinking.  

Japanese School Visit © Japanese International School

After a tour of the premises, Muneta Yokomatsu, a senior research scholar in the Systemic Risk and Resilience Research Group of the IIASA Advancing Systems Analysis Research Program, will give a brief introduction on the history and mission of IIASA. He will then address the issue of systems thinking through a discussion on the life cycle analysis of a bar of chocolate.

This visit marks just one of many more to come in 2024. Systems thinking is an essential skill for dealing with complex challenges and encouraging students to think about the complexity of the natural and social world they live in is one of the broad objectives of the IIASA School Visits Initiative.

Students' impressions after visiting IIASA (selected):

  • I was very impressed by the story about what we can do amid global warming. From now on, I want to think about global warming and take care of the Earth. (3rd- and 4th-year students)
  • I learned how hard it is to complete the process of making chocolate. (3rd- and 4th-year students)
  • I got interested in the history of Vienna and environmental problems. This event gave me a chance to think about what we can do to solve various problems. (5th- and 6th-year students)
  • It was interesting to learn that many people from different countries come to Austria to work at IIASA. Although it may be difficult to immediately stop the problem of increasing CO2, I think there are many things we can do for nature and the environment in our daily lives. (Junior high school student)