Observers of the world: Primary grade students imagining solutions for broken environmental and social systems

Introduction

One spring morning, five- and six-year-olds gathered in small groups to solve environmental and social problems. On the floor of their school’s multipurpose room, Traci and Fiona’s K-1 students (all names are pseudonyms) were sharing “block builds” of imagined futuristic machines. Two students described how their machine would replant trees in the Amazon Rainforest to stem deforestation. Another group shared their plan for preserving Arctic glaciers from melting. Elsewhere, students had built a ship with a large mechanical arm intended to scoop debris to restore an ocean’s habitat. A student dyad had created a robot, humanized with facial features, to recycle materials and output beds for the unhoused.

These young students showed awareness of current issues and understood their own capacity for designing solutions. Their attentiveness to global environmental concerns (Johnson et al., 2019) was noted by their school’s systems thinking professional development consultant who remarked that children are “observers of how the world [worked].” She added, “And we really have underestimated what young children are watching and what they’re thinking. And, more importantly, what it is they want to talk about, what they’re thinking about.” Even though classroom discussions of current complex topics are difficult, they are important “because these discussions can strengthen students’ sense-making, civic engagement, and achievement” (NCTE, 2024). In order to capture the possibilities for young children’s expansive and sustained critical thinking across content areas, we explored how teachers and primary grade students in one K-1 classroom applied a systems thinking view of the world’s interconnectedness using multimodal literacy practices to analyze problematic social and ecological issues.

Multimodal literacy

Multimodal learning is grounded in situated practice in which knowledge is based in a local context (Cope and Kalantzis, 2000; New London Group, 1996). Individuals use available resources and shared experiences for meaning making and learning (Kress and Jewitt, 2003). In the classroom, conventional literacy forms such as reading and writing are often privileged (Kress and Jewitt, 2003; Kuby et al., 2015; Powell and Sommerville, 2018). In contrast, multimodal literacy encompasses a range of communicative approaches including but not limited to “image, gaze, gesture, movement, music, speech and sound-effect” (Kress and Jewitt, 2003: p. 1, cf. Pahl and Rowsell, 2006). The International Literacy Association’s definition of the term multimodal literacies includes “print, drawing, photography, and audio and visual recording” as means for “expressing one’s self” (International Literacy Association [ILA], 2024). Literacy theorists assert that an expansive perspective of literacy allows individuals greater opportunities to express and communicate their understandings (Watts-Taffe, 2022).

Teachers can support learners through overt instruction in multiple literacy practices and provide guidance in the unique affordances of a specific modality (Jewitt, 2008). For example, they might show students how to craft a video by integrating still shots, action, sound, and captions. This engagement affords students’ agency in the creation of and interpretation of complex texts in light of their own social contexts and intentions. Transformed communicative practices are apparent when students (re)construct their ideas, (re)imagine modalities, and (re)present creations of their thinking (Jewitt, 2008).

Children’s multimodal literacy engagement has been examined in different learning contexts and allowed students to critically examine their world and represent their thinking. For example, Brownell (2023) documented how a 9-year-old amplified their conventional letter writing to oppose the contentious political building of a border wall to stem immigration. Using multimodality to demonstrate active opposition, the student, labeled as academically struggling, drew upon multimodal resources and invented water filtration cups. His invention communicated his understanding of the obstacles inherent in crossing the border, compassion for human welfare, and a sense of agency to affect change. Brownell challenges educators to fashion classroom spaces that promote students’ abilities to demonstrate their expertise in different communicative forms.

Stein (2003) documented how primary grade teachers in Johannesburg, South Africa, encouraged first- and second-grade students to create original characters for plays. Across school and then to their home contexts, students’ semiotic chains progressed from two-dimensional drawings, written text, and 3-D dolls in their representations of characters. Each multimodal representation fostered their own “narratives of identity and culture” (Jewitt, 2008: p. 250). In a second-grade classroom, Kuby and colleagues (2015) explored a writing workshop in which the teacher was transitioning to the inclusion of multimodal interactive materials. When students used drawing, poetry, 3-D projects, and creation of a to-scale giraffe, they demonstrated a broad range of understanding. The researchers asserted that, “These intra-actions with materials are a way of communicating and deserve the respect, validation, and privileges that traditional writing (i.e., alphabetic print) commands in schools” (p. 423). In a cross-continental critical literacy project, Janks and Comber (2006) documented elementary students’ use of texts and images in their creation of neighborhood-themed alphabet books. The students’ meaningful topics represented their respective neighborhoods’ uniqueness as well as its complexities. The researchers concluded that learners’ local knowledge and “reconstructive elements of critical literacy” allowed the development of texts that “represents their interests in powerful ways” (p. 115). These studies provide examples of how multimodal literacy can provide avenues for students to critically represent their ideas.

They also provide a glimpse into the potential when educators welcome a range of multimodal resources in a classroom’s communicative landscape (Pahl and Roswell, 2006). Loerts (2010) contends, “The access that students have to a full range of communicational options will allow them to represent their meanings in ways that provide possibilities—possibilities for them to look at issues of importance for them in new ways so that they are empowered—both for themselves and for those around them” (p. 30). Students explored different identities and engaged in the creation of 3-D projects. Shirley Brice Heath (2016) asserts the significance of haptic learning which includes the purposeful sense of touch:

As youngsters produce and create projects in either the arts or sciences, they literally ‘feel’ themselves as agents or builders who make things happen. However, they can do so only as they gain practice and ideally encouragement in listening, observing, envisioning, and then enacting or dramatizing their internal images and scenarios (p. 122).

As multimodal literacy encompasses a variety of dynamic engagement including gaze, gesture, speech, movement, sound (Jewitt 2008), drawing, 3-D forms (Kuby et al., 2015; Stein, 2003), photography, and audio and visual recording (ILA, 2021), it allows for an expansive expression of cognition. Its non-linear nature pairs well with understanding and representing the dynamic aspects of a systems thinking approach which was the framing pedagogy in this K-1 classroom.

Systems thinking

Systems thinking is a long-established framework that recognizes the natural and human worlds as interconnected and interdependent (Capra and Luisi, 2014; Meadows and Wright, 2008; Wheatley, 2006). With its roots in biology and physical sciences, a system can be defined as a collection of elements operating towards a common goal or in a manner to achieve a purpose (Meadows and Wright, 2008). Extended to social, economic, and historical domains (Capra and Luisi, 2014; Stroh, 2015), this approach recognizes that systems are dynamic, have patterns, are self-sustaining through feedback loops, are interdependent, and are subject to disruption.

Capra and Luisi make distinctions between natural and human-made systems (2014). A tree, for example, is a natural system whose changes are seasonally patterned; it is interdependent with birds and other small animals who use it as a habitat and for food (Capra, 1990). In contrast, a bicycle is a human-created system. The parts—wheels, handlebars, seat, chair—are independent elements until they are assembled and connected (Capra and Luisi, 2014). A systems thinking perspective recognizes a system’s interdependency with other systems. A system can also be disrupted by identifying a point of leverage where the greatest impact can be made. A forest fire, for example, could seriously undermine a tree system, just as a reforestation effort can repair it.

A system thinking approach can be applied to solving a number of seemingly intractable societal problems or as they are known, “wicked problems,” (Checkland and Poulter, 2006) such as climate change, poverty, and homelessness. Cabrera and Colosi (2008) contend that one way to understand these types of complexities is through the use of four conceptual patterns: distinctions, systems, relationships, and perspectives or DSRP. Distinctions are the identifiable differences between things or concepts. Systems are composed of parts that work together to achieve a particular goal. Relationships indicate actions between people or phenomena, while perspectives indicate varied points of view. Cabrera and Colosi (2008) assert that the engagement of these four patterns foster a learner’s deep understanding and application of systems thinking.

In systems thinking, the interrelationships among different systems, ideas, concepts, objects and parts of a system involve nested systems, feedback loops, and change over time. As such, systems thinking is non-linear. In texts explicating systems thinking (e.g., Cabrera and Cabrera, 2015; Capra and Luisi, 2014; Checkland and Poulter, 2006; Meadows and Wright, 2008; Stroh, 2015), narrative descriptions of both simple and complex systems are augmented and expressed in a multimodal manner using models with graphic shapes (e.g., circles, rectangular figures, squares, triangles) to represent major ideas. Straight and circular lines and arrows depict the relationships and connections between them.

Systems thinking is not inherently multimodal, but the interrelationships and interconnectedness within and among systems are made visible when represented by multimodal means. One multimodal tool used by individuals in multiple disciplines is a software application tool, Plectica (https://www.plectica.com/), developed by systems thinkers Cabrera and Cabrera. This tool enables users to create design models of thinking and work processes. In elementary grades, a common systems-based multimodal text is the water cycle, where words, images, and arrows convey the interrelatedness of the circular directionality and physical change of water (e.g., evaporation, condensation, precipitation, collection,). The multimodal literacy skills used to understand relationships among graphics and visuals are different from the traditional skills used to decode words written left-to-right and top-to-bottom on a page. Thus, multimodal literacy enhances individuals’ ability to “read” and understand a complex representation of ideas, as well as providing individuals with agency to express the interrelatedness of their thinking (Loerts, 2010). For young children, drawing, painting, making gestures, and using manipulatives such as wooden blocks are multimodal literacy tools they can use in addition to conventional reading and writing practices to represent their complex thinking.

In this K-1 classroom where teachers and their students were using systems thinking, they engaged in multimodal literacy practices that allowed them to explore new understandings and develop a conceptual understanding of systems. Systems maps showed teachers and their students the interrelatedness of parts and processes within a system and to other systems. Collectively developing systems thinking maps, producing individual drawings, collaborating and building with blocks, and creating with different material forms were communicative practices in which students represented their evolving ideas to ameliorate environmental and social problems.

Literature review

Young children have the capacity for inquiry (Johnson et al., 2019). Because critical thinking skills are important, classroom environments must move from linear curriculum and transmission models of learning to ones that foster children’s curiosity and interests (Cassell and Nelson, 2010). Many teachers facilitate students’ critical literacy skills through multimodal literacy (e.g., Brownell, 2023; Harwood and Collier, 2017, Janks and Comber, 2006; Kuby et al., 2015). These include learning experiences that involve “inquiry and investigation, application of knowledge to new situations, production of ideas and solutions, and collaborative problem-solving” (Darling-Hammond et al., 2020: p. 100).

Peter Senge and other educators assert the importance of a systems thinking perspective at both the school-wide and classroom levels (2012). Systems thinking in middle school and high school classrooms has been documented with natural systems (e.g., Assaraf and Orion, 2010; Hmelo-Silver et al., 2007), while research in elementary settings, particularly early childhood, is more recent and tends to focus on the acquisition of a singular systems thinking concept or model. For example, Koski and De Vries (2013) used pre- and post-testing of eight- to 10-year-olds understanding of an engineering system’s (1) input and output; (2) relationship between parts and whole; and (3) system boundary by using familiar household appliances. After one lesson about a washing machine’s elements, process, and bounded system, students described the user’s experience instead of the machine’s function, thus blurring boundaries between a system and a process. Hokayem et al. (2015) explored first- through fourth graders’ ability to understand feedback loop reasoning with food webs in a sustainable context and a context with no predators. The researchers concluded that explicit teaching of feedback loop reasoning in the early grades is important since the concept is a “stepping stone” leading to complex conceptual systems thinking in secondary and higher education.

Danish et al. (2017) investigated first- and second graders’ systems understanding and reasoning skills. Students participated in a computer simulation with explicit scaffolding questions designed to encourage attention to an individual honeybee’s interaction with the complex hive system. Their initial reasonings of a bee’s behavior were more fully articulated only after a sequence of prompted interview questions. Authors concluded that “students’ knowledge of the systems needs to be treated as both situated and dynamic” (p. 23) and within students’ zone of proximal development.

Of note are classroom studies that document how teachers adopting a pedagogy infused with a systems thinking perspective drew upon student voice and inspired students to take action in their communities both locally and globally (Ardell and Curwen, 2020). These include classrooms where second-grade students explored themes of kindness within their urban school. They conducted a kindness audit of their school system and wrote letters to their principal with suggestions for improving the school environment (Ardell et al., in press). At a different school, a second-grade class developed solutions to a statewide drought and took steps to encourage change in their school and with families (Curwen et al., 2018). In another case study, fifth graders explored modern day slavery throughout the world through incorporating social studies inquiries, poems, and graphs of countries’ trafficked populations as an awareness project for students’ families and community (Curwen et al., 2019). Lewison et al.’s report (2015) of a seventh-grade class captured how students made connections to understand the circumstances of famine in Malawi and applied their knowledge of systems to similar problems in other countries. After researching each country’s context, students crafted realistic solutions to solve hunger and presented their ideas to their peers. In each of these classroom studies, students’ agentic steps sought to disrupt an out-of-balance system for the betterment of the social world or natural environment.

This qualitative case study in a K-1 classroom complements earlier investigations with young children in important ways. That is, the students: 1) engaged in systems thinking inquiry throughout the academic year and across content areas; 2) applied their systems thinking learning across subsequently introduced social, technological, and natural systems; 3) recognized the impact of human action on the environment; and 4) engaged in developing solutions to social and ecological problems.

Later in this article, we will share a representative student end-of-year project, the students’ self-titled project—Trash Robot and Beds for the Homeless—to exemplify how their investigation into their neighborhood and environment was manifested through engagement in inquiry, development of ideas, and problem-solving throughout the curriculum. As early childhood educators Halsip and Dullo (2018) note:

[W]hen young students participate in an integrated curriculum, that is genuinely holistic and ethically guided, they more naturally make connections between and across subject matter, triggering heightened creativity, becoming better skilled at reasoning in a multidisciplinary and integrative manner, and are more likely to think beyond the constraints of a discipline and focus instead on wider purposes for learning (p. 253).

Similarly, students in this study engaged in classroom multimodal literacy practices in a year-long exploration. In doing so, the teachers and students integrated social studies and the arts, named connections between local and global systems, articulated the link between human actions and consequences, and developed agency by using their voice to critically analyze the impact of humans’ actions and relationships to their natural and social worlds.

Methods

This study is part of a broader investigation on the nature of elementary classroom teachers’ use of systems thinking at two school sites: one independent (private) school and one Title I public school located in a large urban area of the southwestern United States. (Title I schools are places in which more than 40% of the student population are “low income.” This designation allows them to receive supplemental federal funding to improve student achievement [NCES, 2024].) The two schools formed a partnership to develop pedagogical practices associated with systems thinking through a grant secured by the independent school. Across both school sites, there were eight K-5 educators and 70 students who participated in the study. The partner schools shared their respective classroom’s learning experiences with one other at various times during the year, allowing us to gain insight into how systems thinking evolved in two different contexts.

This qualitative case study reports on one K-1 classroom at the independent school, Sycamore School. It valued research-based practices as well as innovation. The school has a reputation as a progressive school and takes a leadership stance in educating families about new instructional initiatives through parent education programs that include school-wide book clubs as well as guest speakers and teacher presentations. At the time of the study, the school’s population was 77% white and 23% students of color. As an independent non-religious institution, the school is not required to disclose family income levels. However, since families must pay tuition to attend, it attracts families with discretionary income.

Pedagogical practices at Sycamore School included thematic instruction, project-based learning, design thinking, and a focus on the development of life skills such as personal responsibility and care for others. The teachers had expanded their science, technology, engineering, math (STEM) curriculum with environment, multicultural, and art components. As part of the professional development, the teachers were supported by a systems thinking consultant who used in-class observations, coaching and individual and grade level meetings to support individual teaching needs relevant to their classroom context. This professional development was shared with its local partner Title I public elementary school and took place over 3 years. Teachers at both sites shared ideas with one another on how to enact systems thinking strategies with their respective students.

In the teachers’ second year of systems thinking when this study took place, Traci and Fiona’s first graders were seasoned in the approach. They had spent their prior kindergarten year with the same teachers learning about the systems of a farm and identifying systems within children’s literature. During year two of the study, the pedagogical focus shifted as it followed students’ new interests. As a result, the three major points of inquiry in Tracy and Fiona’s classroom were community, the relationship between humans and machines, and students’ own social and environmental concerns at both the local and global levels. Throughout the year, students investigated and researched their immediate and larger world as a complex network of interacting and interdependent systems. They were engaged in what some educators recognize as an increasingly important inquiry into the consequential effects of human activity on the environment (Cervetti, 2021; McCormick, 2019). With this awareness, these students saw themselves as responsible problem-solvers committed to restoration and preservation of the world.

Data collection and analysis

Multiple ethnographic methods of data collection were used. Ethnographic methods are particularly useful for identifying the meaning of individual and group practices. The first author collected data during the spring to learn more about the year’s systems thinking learning. She visited the classroom eight times, conducted five semi-structured interviews with the teachers, school administrators and the consultant; conducted two focus groups with students, collected 120 photographs of the classroom environment, and attended a full day teacher-led professional development session devoted to systems thinking. As part of their professional development, the teachers knew they would be formally sharing their systems thinking focused pedagogy with other educators. Accordingly, since the start of the school year, Traci and Fiona had carefully preserved their systems thinking maps and also taken photographs documenting student learning. Essentially these systems thinking maps, charts, and photographs served as a palimpsest of the progression of instruction and classroom dialogue. Analyzed in conjunction with teacher interviews, these classroom artifacts were especially helpful in the reconstruction of the students’ evolving interest in machines from the beginning of the year. Systems thinking maps and charts captured the complexity of students’ projects and documented students’ thinking (see Figures 1–4). Analytic notes after each observation and interview documented key moments and the researcher’s early analysis, conjectures, and hypotheses. These notes also set the stage for follow-up questions with school site educators, consultants, and students.OPEN IN VIEWER

Figure 1.

Multimodal social studies systems thinking map on community needs.

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Figure 2.

Multimodal social studies’ systems thinking map on a fire station’s internal systems.

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Figure 3.

Students categorize their concerns and cares about the world.

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Figure 4.

Making distinctions between robot systems and human systems.

Because we noticed that systems thinking was prevalent in the context of interdisciplinary literacy activities, the first analytical step was the coding of key multimodal and traditional literacy events (Barton and Hamilton, 2000) such as building machines with blocks, reading literature, creating systems charts, drawing their imaginative machines, and writing poems. In the second analytical step, these instances were then analyzed using Cabrera and Colosi’s (2008) four patterns of thinking: distinctions, systems, relationships, and perspectives (DSRP) to organize knowledge and build metacognition. This analysis provided insight into how systems thinking concepts of interrelationships and interdependencies (Capra and Luisi, 2014; Meadows and Wright, 2008) guided teachers’ and students’ collective thinking.

The third level of coding was to use a grounded theory approach (Strauss and Corbin, 1994) to categorize these thinking patterns into three themes: cultivating connections, students’ developing solutions, and students’ agency. The cultivating connections’ theme captured the teachers’ facilitating and scaffolding an understanding of systems particular to the youngsters’ lived experiences. Children then developed solutions by creating imaginary future-oriented machines to solve problems they identified. Students’ agency was exemplified by their discussing a social or ecological problem, identifying how their machine solved the problem, and sharing their machine prototypes to an audience of family members and with their “buddy class” from the Title I partner public school.

As former classroom teachers and currently as university professors who teach literacy courses in teacher preparation programs, our research team was captivated by the ways the different literacy modalities of reading, writing, talking, drawing, and building (Taylor and Leung, 2020) throughout the curriculum deepened students’ connections to environmental and social systems and ultimately spurred them into recognizing the importance of people taking action.

Findings

This article describes a year-long journey into the development of these teachers and K-1^st grade students, co-learning and co-researching the interconnectedness and interdependence of machines and humans using a systems thinking perspective often enacted through multimodal literacy experiences. As co-researchers, the teachers explored ideas generated by their students to recognize patterns and relationships of human-created problems. They aided the five- and six-year-olds in providing solutions by applying human agency to find leverage points (Senge et al., 2012) to disrupt broken ecological and social systems by providing solutions. In this classroom, systems thinking encouraged children's agentic optimism and their hope to solve wicked problems (Cabrera and Cabrera, 2015).

Developing as change agents

Throughout the year, Traci and Fiona fostered their K-1 students’ agency in recognizing that they could make a difference in the world.

Empowering students

In the spring was the culmination of their year-long systems inquiry into the relationships and interdependencies among humans, machines, and the environment. In a showcase for the school community and their families, as well as their buddy class from their partner school, students shared their imaginative machines/robots and provided documentation and a chronology of their project’s development. In their explanatory writing, students included: 1) a statement of the broken social or environmental system that their invention aimed to solve; 2) an explanation of how their futuristic machine or robot helped solve the problem; 3) an identification of the various systems involved in their design; and 4) practical suggestions for how individuals could make a difference now. A representative student example in Figure 5 is shared to illustrate the full impact of these projects and reveal students’ understanding of interrelating systems.

Trash robot and beds for the homeless

One student group’s project, Trash Robot and Beds for the Homeless, (see Figure 5), was designed to solve both trash pollution and homelessness. As students were engineering their project during their early block build, they explained its complex components and their relationships to the researcher, “This is...a trash machine that makes beds. Laser eyes…disintegrate the trash. Claws that take the trash… [and turn into] a bed the robot made. Beds go to the homeless people.” When asked how the students knew there were people without homes, one said that they had seen people who were homeless while driving with their parents and another shared how their family was involved in community-service projects, “Me and my mom bought lots of stuff and put it in Ziploc bags and gave it to the people.” Their final project was a robot with human facial features that expressed compassion. In their presentation project’s display, the students articulated the systemic social problem of homelessness they wanted to disrupt in a conventional descriptive paragraph (see Figure 6).OPEN IN VIEWER

Figure 5.

Children’s invention of a Trash Robot and Beds for the Homeless.

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Figure 6.

Students identifying a social problem and their robot solution to disrupt homelessness.

The students further described how their futuristic design helped, “Our machine works hard day and night, and homeless people use the beds the robot makes and they sleep on it. Because of the beds, the homeless people are happy.” They suggested, “People can help when they see trash on the floor and they toss it into the trash cans and they could let people be nice to Earth and to be less greedy.”

This is just one example of students’ projects in which they identified real-world problems that required others to contribute to practical solutions. In the final weeks of school after the students’ presentations, the teachers found a short YouTube documentary about a ship clearing pollution from the ocean. When the students saw the video, they were excited to learn that their problem-solving ideas—which some adults might think idealistic and improbable—were already being used and not as futuristic as one might imagine.

When sharing their students’ experiences with other classroom teachers, Traci and Fiona reflected on this year-long systems thinking inquiry and described how they incorporated a subsequent service project which entailed using their school’s 3-D printer to create a child’s prosthetic hand. Their multimodal project showed an understanding of how the cost of frequent prosthetics, required by a young person's growth spurts, might be reduced with a 3-D printer. They described this project as “the perfect melding of what humans and machines can do together to save the world.”

Discussion

This study contributes to the field by analyzing how teachers and primary grade students used pedagogy with a systems thinking focus to analyze problematic social and ecological issues. The findings provide insight into the aptness of young students’ thinking and their ability to assume agency to affect change (Curwen et al., 2018).

Conclusion

Systems thinking, with its orientation for solving current social, environmental, and economic problems, is relevant to educators interested in developing a more democratic and inclusive world (Cabrera and Colosi, 2008). It is an approach to learning and connectivity that encompasses other teaching approaches, for example, thematic units, interdisciplinary teaching, project-based learning, life skills training, and design thinking but with a focus on relationships. This includes relationships between systems as well as the placing of oneself in relation to the world. A systems thinking curriculum has the potential to elevate individual need to create a more inclusive society that promotes social justice, economic equity, and environmental protection. It supports pursuits through comprehensive and creative solutions (Capra and Luisi, 2014; Strachan, 2009).

Through the engagement of systems thinking and multimodal literacy, students in this study realized their ability to make connections between the local and global (Janks and Comber, 2006; Pahl and Rowsell, 2006). The students understood the relationship between human action and its consequences. They expressed their hope for the future, and they developed agency for restoration of their world. Literacy events and social interaction (Taylor and Leung, 2020) intersected with other curricular areas and social justice topics. This case provides insight into what it looks like when a classroom is transformed into “...a unity in which personal aspirations contribute to grander collective responsibilities” (Davis and Sumara, 2009: p. 38). The use of systems thinking in the classroom can be transformative for students (and potentially society). It orients young learners in how they think about the world and their role in it (Curwen et al., 2018).

Implications

This article encourages educators to see the possibilities for children’s critical thinking and problem solving when using a systems thinking approach to engage in real world problems and their level of experiences. Educators can also recognize the capacity of young students to make connections, see relationships, and wrestle with wicked problems to develop imaginative solutions. As documented in this case, students’ lived experiences can be meaningfully and powerfully integrated into the curriculum through multimodal representations. Importantly, the use of systems thinking as a pedagogical lens broadened the curriculum beyond factual knowledge acquisition to conceptual understandings of global interrelatedness. We call for further research in this area in order to examine the possibilities of curriculum to expand and meet the potential of young students’ minds.