Systems Thinking

Systems thinking is a forward thinking approach to finding solutions to multifaceted problems. It is integral to environment-based education and has been associated with increased test scores and performance in core K-12 subjects (reading, math, science, and social studies) and with helping prepare students to make important decisions throughout their lives.

Our children are growing up in a world that is increasingly complex, dynamic and interconnected. We are now in era of global communication that will increasingly require our citizenry to understand complex environmental issues, assess risk, evaluate proposed economic and environmental plans, and understand how individual decisions affect the environment on local and global scales.

CELF advocates systems thinking as an underlying construct in K-12 education as it enables students to see the whole over parts, relationships over objects, and how natural, economic and social systems interrelate.

Systems thinking has come to the attention of educators as an interdisciplinary restructuring tool for creating a more effective educational system. It is the foundation governing changes in educational institutions and literacy worldwide.

Systems thinking is an idea that helps us think about parts and wholes. It draws attention to the interactions of the parts of something with one another and the relation of the parts to the whole. The idea also emphasizes effects—what influences the behavior of something and what, in turn, that thing accomplished.