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Reorienting chemistry education through systems thinking

Nature Reviews Chemistry volume 2, Article number: 0126 (2018) Cite this article

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In biology courses, it is difficult to imagine studying organisms, such as Plasmodium spp. parasites that cause malaria, without attending to their function as interdependent components of a web of biological and other systems. Those systems need to be understood at different levels — from molecular and cellular mechanisms, through the development and habitat of parasites and hosts (including the Anopheles mosquito), to the entire ecosystem that regulates their life cycle and ultimately the socio-economic and environmental parameters that influence transmission of disease. Similarly, contemporary engineering education includes explicit pedagogical strategies designed to help learners see the interdependence of components that make up an object under construction, such as a cell phone, a bridge or a space shuttle. Systems thinking in STEM — science, technology, engineering and mathematics — describes approaches embedded in the practice of engineering and biology that move beyond the fragmented knowledge of disciplinary content to a more holistic understanding of the field. In this way, practioners can see the forest while not losing sight of the trees. Systems thinking approaches emphasize the interdependence of components of dynamic systems and their interactions with other systems, including societal and environmental systems. Such approaches often involve analyzing emergent behaviour, which is how a system as a whole behaves in ways that go beyond what can be learned from studying the isolated components of that system.

Chemical reactions and processes, both in nature and industry, also function as parts of complex, dynamic and interdependent systems. Chemistry systems and sub-systems can be small and localized (much like a reaction in a laboratory flask), or large and diffuse (as is the distribution of carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere, hydrosphere and biosphere). Moreover, chemistry systems and their components interact with many other systems, including the surrounding environment, leading to both beneficial and harmful effects on biological, ecological, physical, societal and other systems. Despite these interconnections, systems thinking is relatively unfamiliar to chemists and chemistry educators. The learning objectives for chemistry programs at both the high school and university level rarely include substantial and explicit emphasis on strategies that move beyond understanding isolated chemical reactions and processes to envelop systems thinking.

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Figure 1: A framework for analysis of systems thinking in chemistry education.

Acknowledgements

We thank the International Organization for Chemical Sciences in Development for supporting a workshop hosted in Namur, Belgium during which this article was prepared. We also acknowledge the contributions of Kris Ooms toward visualizing the framework in Figure 1, and Tom Holme and Jennifer MacKellar for work on the earth and societal systems node.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Peter G. Mahaffy is at the Department of Chemistry and the King’s Centre for Visualization in Science, The King's University, Edmonton, Canada.,

    Peter G. Mahaffy

  2. Alain Krief is at the International Organization for Chemical Sciences in Development, Namur, Belgium,

    Alain Krief

  3. Chemistry Department, Namur University, Namur, Belgium

    Alain Krief

  4. Hussain Ebrahim Jamal Research Institute of Chemistry, University of Karachi, Karachi, Pakistan

    Alain Krief

  5. Henning Hopf is at the International Organization for Chemical Sciences in Development, Namur, Belgium,

    Henning Hopf

  6. Institute of Organic Chemistry, Technische Universität Braunschweig, Braunschweig, Germany

    Henning Hopf

  7. Goverdhan Mehta is at the International Organization for Chemical Sciences in Development, Namur, Belgium,

    Goverdhan Mehta

  8. School of Chemistry, University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad, India

    Goverdhan Mehta

  9. Stephen A. Matlin is at the International Organization for Chemical Sciences in Development, Namur, Belgium,

    Stephen A. Matlin

  10. Institute of Global Health Innovation, Imperial College London, London, UK

    Stephen A. Matlin

Authors
  1. Peter G. Mahaffy
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  2. Alain Krief
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Correspondence to Stephen A. Matlin.

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Mahaffy, P., Krief, A., Hopf, H. et al. Reorienting chemistry education through systems thinking. Nat Rev Chem 2, 0126 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41570-018-0126

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