DOI
https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jchemed.9b00309

Summary
This article aims to identify challenges in chemistry education for introducing concepts relevant to systems in order to improve students’ conceptual understanding of chemistry and develop their systems thinking skills.
Systems thinking skills are central for students gaining a deep understanding of the nature of complex systems that we interact with as part of everyday life. Systems thinking includes a set of skills for understanding, analyzing, and working with systems consisting of multiple interconnected elements and exhibiting emergent properties. A great barrier to students’ conceptual understanding and reasoning in chemistry is a lack of understanding of emergence in chemistry. Consideration of emergent properties requires transitions between single-particle, and multi-particle, ensemble views which often include dynamic interactions that involve the transition between two systems boundaries (discrete molecules vs groups of molecules).
Supporting students’ development of system thinking skills through chemistry education aims not only at improving their understanding of chemistry but also at equipping them to become professionals and citizens who can contribute to tackling wider challenges in society.
The authors bring out the need for more research related especially with the design and effectiveness of learning activities to improve both systems thinking skills and conceptual understanding of chemistry (e.g., understanding chemical properties through the lens of emergence, metastable and temporary equilibrium states, chaotic systems, oscillatory systems, nonlinear dynamics, and systems behavior, etc.).

Relevance for Complex Systems Knowledge
Systems thinking is generally considered as a set of transferrable skills that can be applied to different disciplinary contexts. This paper describes the conceptualization of systems thinking either as “the ability to understand and interpret complex systems”, or as “a set of synergistic analytic skills (e.g. recognizing interconnections, identifying and understanding feedback, understanding dynamic behavior, and understanding systems at different scales) used to improve the capability of identifying and understanding systems, predicting their behaviors, and devising modifications to them in order to produce desired effects”.

Point of Strength
The discussion and examples that highlight some areas where it may be possible to help students develop systems thinking skills, improving simultaneously their conceptual understanding of chemistry.