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Publication

A systems thinking approach in secondary geography education

Book - Dissertation

Due to globalization the interconnectedness of people and goods has increased tremendously. Therefore, relationships on earth become increasingly complex, which creates a challenge for geography teachers to explain this complexity in a clear and appealing way, but also for students who have to understand and explicit these relationships. To understand this complexity it seems important to look at the system as a whole and the interconnectedness between the different elements in the system. This is called systems thinking and seems to be a skill with a high potential in geography education.However, currently little is known about the implementation of systems thinking in social economical themes and to what extent it is effective for students. Furthermore, there exists no standardized tool to measure the level of systems thinking. Therefore this research project focuses on three questions: First, how can a lesson series based on systems thinking tools be developed for themes like food supply, natural resources, sustainability, globalization and international migration in geography lessons, and which limitations have to be taken into account? Second, how can the level of systems thinking be measured and can this level be improved by the developed lesson series based on systems thinking tools? Third, to what extent are teachers familiar with system thinking and systems thinking tools? How do they experience the implementation of these systems thinking tools in the aforementioned themes?To answer these questions an experimental design is used. A learning community will be established for the teachers who are prepared to teach the new lesson series based on systems thinking tools in the third grade of secondary education. The effect of the lesson series will be measured with a pre - and posttest for the students in the experimental group and the control group. The obtained results will be used to identify the focus of this research in the next phase: teachers, students, the curriculum, or systems thinking in other educational settings.
Publication year:2018