A perspective is comprised of both a point and a view. Understanding multiple stakeholder perspectives, (including where they are coming from — point — and what they are seeing — view) is a key piece of systems thinking and developing environmental literacy.  Nonhuman living beings and nonliving objects can also be a point from which something is “viewed.” It can be challenging to know what that view is, but we, as humans, can estimate or imagine what that might be.

Systems thinking is about examining a system as a whole.  Systems thinking is an emergent property (Cabrera & Cabrera, 2015, p. 9) that results from using four simple rules together:

1. Distinctions Rule: Any idea or thing can be distinguished from the other ideas or things it is with;
2. Systems Rule: Any idea or thing can be split into parts or lumped into a whole;
3. Relationships Rule: Any idea or thing can relate to other things or ideas; and
4. Perspectives Rule: Any idea or thing can be the point or the view of a perspective.

Through making distinctions, identifying relationships, organizing into parts and wholes, and considering perspectives, students gain the skills needed to understand their own mental models of how the world works, adjust those models based on feedback (learning), and create the desired outcome. Students who are able to address concepts and issues from a systems thinking approach will be able to design a more sustainable future. 

Systems and nested systems are additional “big ideas” within the standards and present in both systems thinking and Capra’s ecological principles. While Stone writes about it in terms of natural systems, the concept applies to cultural systems as well: “Nature is made up of systems that are nested within systems. Each individual system is an integrated whole and—at the same time — part of larger systems. Changes within a system can affect the sustainability of the systems that are nested within it as well as the larger systems in which it exists” (Stone, 2012).  

Throughout the standards, students are asked to examine impact to systems and outcomes. The outcome of a system is determined by the system’s structure. To achieve different outcomes, modifications to the system’s structure must be made. 

Feedback is information taken from a situation or experience. As systems respond to change, the results or effects create feedback in various forms, such as biochemical changes or behavioral responses. In systems thinking, students analyze feedback to consider potential modifications to the system structure to receive different feedback.  

FIELD Edventures connects with educators to explore the outdoors, foster inquiry, and engage learners through discovery to engage the rock-skipping, frog-catching spirit that lives in each of us! FIELD Edventures hosts professional development, partners with schools to provide coaching and technical assistance, and creates relevant place-based content for learners. 

EEK! Environmental Education for Kids website, supported by FIELD Edventures, provides high-quality, locally-relevant information about Wisconsin’s ecology and natural resources to bring into your classroom. Designed for upper-elementary and middle school students, EEK! has nearly 1,000 pages of kid-friendly content, including 70 Spanish language resources. (Exit Hub)