Several decades of work by pioneers such as Cathy Middlecamp have laid the groundwork for approaches to chemistry education that integrally connect teaching and learning about the molecular world to our common future. The web of connections linking challenging sustainability and societal issues to chemistry content coverage have become more visible, starting with context-based learning in post-secondary courses for students who major in areas other than the natural sciences. Yet inertia and other barriers remain to widespread transformation of post-secondary courses for science majors, such as general chemistry. Systems thinking approaches to chemistry education build on that groundwork, and provide a framework for linking the teaching and learning of chemistry to our common future. Systems thinking draws attention to a need to balance the benefits and impacts of chemical substances and the role they play in societal and environmental systems. Applied to STEM education, systems thinking describes approaches that move beyond fragmented and reductionist knowledge of disciplinary content to a more integrated and holistic understanding of the field. We will discuss progress on the IUPAC Systems Thinking in Chemistry Education project and its implications for connecting chemistry education to our common future.

Systems thinking: Camping in the middle of science, sustainability, and society

2019 Spring National Meeting

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