About this Research Topic
Thinking in terms of systems is pervasive in STEM and represents a viable way to bridge disciplinary boundaries when confronting complex, multifaceted problems such as climate change, pandemics, and food security. Biology is distinguished from other STEM disciplines as a science of living systems. Expert biologists intuitively traverse the landscape of biology by expanding and contracting system boundaries to zoom in and out of different scales of biological organization. However, a systems lens is rarely applied in the context of teaching the breadth of topics typical of biology curricula, leaving learners challenged to distinguish transferrable foundational concepts from case-specific instances of phenomena. Biology learners have much to gain from a systems perspective that unifies and coheres biological content, makes conceptual connections more salient, and aligns ways of thinking about biological systems with systems in other disciplines, such as engineering, chemistry, and physics. Biology education should therefore prepare students to be ‘systems thinkers’ and equip them with the requisite skills to represent biological systems, reason about relationships within and between systems, and predict consequences of system perturbations.
Guiding frameworks such as Vision & Change (V&C) and Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) echo broad consensus that learning to think in and about systems is important for STEM training generally, and life sciences specifically. Although recent research suggests systems and systems thinking is a rapidly emerging area of interest, few resources currently exist that provide evidence of best practices for promoting and/or assessing systems thinking in biology classroom contexts and facilitating interdisciplinary learning and inquiry. With this Research Topic we aim to build on that momentum to expand what is known about systems and systems thinking in biology teaching and learning from both applied and theoretical perspectives.
For this Research Topic we seek submissions of original research, essays, and reviews that contribute to our understanding of applications of systems and systems thinking in biology teaching and learning. Themes of interest include (but are not limited to):
(1) evidence-based methods for promoting systems thinking,
(2) practical methods for assessing systems thinking in classroom or other learning contexts,
(3) the cognitive basis for learning and thinking in systems,
(4) theoretical considerations of systems thinking,
(5) applications of systems thinking in training and/or research,
(6) intersecting systems thinking in biology with other STEM disciplines.
Guiding frameworks such as Vision & Change (V&C) and Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) echo broad consensus that learning to think in and about systems is important for STEM training generally, and life sciences specifically. Although recent research suggests systems and systems thinking is a rapidly emerging area of interest, few resources currently exist that provide evidence of best practices for promoting and/or assessing systems thinking in biology classroom contexts and facilitating interdisciplinary learning and inquiry. With this Research Topic we aim to build on that momentum to expand what is known about systems and systems thinking in biology teaching and learning from both applied and theoretical perspectives.
For this Research Topic we seek submissions of original research, essays, and reviews that contribute to our understanding of applications of systems and systems thinking in biology teaching and learning. Themes of interest include (but are not limited to):
(1) evidence-based methods for promoting systems thinking,
(2) practical methods for assessing systems thinking in classroom or other learning contexts,
(3) the cognitive basis for learning and thinking in systems,
(4) theoretical considerations of systems thinking,
(5) applications of systems thinking in training and/or research,
(6) intersecting systems thinking in biology with other STEM disciplines.
Keywords: systems thinking, biology, complex systems, STEM Education
Important Note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.
