Mainstreaming education for sustainable development in chemistry via a systems thinking approach: a case study on a series of lessons in the existing curriculum

Systems thinking (ST) has been adopted in Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) as an approach that enables learners to analyse complexity, interdependence, and multiple dimensions of sustainability issues. This paper reports a participatory action research study that developed a sequence of five consecutive ESD-integrated chemistry lessons through the ST approach and investigated its impact on the development of students’ ST competence. The lessons, developed based on an adapted educational framework for teaching chemistry using a ST approach and the learning outcomes (LOs) of the local existing curriculum, were tested with 44 ninth-graders at a lower secondary school in Vietnam. Students’ ST competence was assessed using a one-way repeated measures design, in which both quantitative and qualitative data were collected through written tests with open-ended questions and anecdotal records, using a methodological triangulation approach. Data from written tests were analysed using one-way ANOVA and descriptive statistics, while data from the anecdotal records were examined through deductive qualitative content analysis. The results showed a positive trend in the development of most students’ ST skills (STS) across the five lessons, but the developmental trajectories differed across STS. Notably, the data revealed that strict alignment with the mandatory LOs may have constrained the development of certain STS. The results suggested that initiatives integrating chemistry lessons with ESD should continue to be implemented in other countries’ national curricula, with particular attention to implementation in the form of lesson sequences, to evaluate their alignment with mandatory LOs, and to guide the use of ST in chemistry education and ensure coherence, continuity, and transformative impact.