1. Systems Thinking: What and Why?

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Why Is Systems Thinking Important? - Curricular Applications
Educators, community members and students value systems thinking concepts and habits in schooling and life. Almost all curricular areas already include some explicit or implicit study of systems and how they operate. Learners can use systems thinking strategies to increase their understanding of the systems they study, in fields from fine arts to technology.

The table provides examples of cross-curricular standards that include systems concepts or habits of systems thinking. Although in the United States not all subject areas have nationally uniform education standards, the links provided in each curricular area will take you to the recognized source in that subject area from which the accompanying curricular standard came.

Wherever you teach, it’s likely you’ll find similar systems concepts embedded throughout the K-12 curricula.

Curricular Area	Systems Thinking Context
Fine Arts Music	NA-M.K-4.1 Singing, Alone and with Others, a Varied Repertoire of Music Achievement Standard: •Students sing in groups, blending vocal timbres, matching dynamic levels, and responding to the cues of a conductor See entire document.
Theater	NA-T.5-8.2 Acting by Developing Basic Acting Skills to Portray Characters Who Interact in Improvised and Scripted Scenes Achievement Standard: •Students analyze descriptions, dialogue, and actions to discover, articulate, and justify character motivation and invent character behaviors based on the observation of interactions, ethical choices, and emotional responses of people See entire document.
Visual Arts	NA-VA.9-12.2 Using Knowledge of Structures and Functions Achievement Standard, Advanced: Students create multiple solutions to specific visual arts problems that demonstrate competence in producing effective relationships between structural choices and artistic functions See entire document.
Foreign Language	Cultures — Gain Knowledge and Understanding of Other Cultures Standard 2.1: Students demonstrate an understanding of the relationship between the practices and perspectives of the culture studied. Standards for Foreign Language Learning
Health	Health Advocacy NPH-H.5-8.7 Students will demonstrate the ability to advocate for personal, family, and community health National Health Education Standards, American Cancer Society
Language Arts	Students apply a wide range of strategies to comprehend, interpret, evaluate, and appreciate texts. They draw on their prior experience, their interactions with other readers and writers, their knowledge of word meaning and of other texts, their word identification strategies, and their understanding of textual features (e.g., sound-letter correspondence, sentence structure, context, graphics). The National Council of Teachers of English, Standards for the English Language Arts Sponsored by NCTE and IRA
Mathematics	Algebra Understand patterns, relations, and functions Analyze change in various contexts National Council of Teachers of Mathematics - Algebra Number and Operation Standards Understand numbers, ways of representing numbers, relationships among numbers, and number systems National Council of Teachers of Mathematics - Numbers
Social Studies	VIII. Science, Technology and Society Young children can learn how technologies form systems and how their daily lives are intertwined with a host of technologies. National Council for the Social Studies
Science	Unifying Concepts and Processes Standard Unifying concepts and processes include Systems, order, and organization. Evidence, models, and explanation. Change, constancy, and measurement National Science Education Standards, National Academies Press
Technology	Creativity and Innovation Students demonstrate creative thinking, construct knowledge, and develop innovative products and processes using technology. Students: use models and simulations to explore complex systems and issues. identify trends and forecast possibilities. National Education Technology Standards International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE)

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Fine Arts Music

Theater

NA-VA.9-12.2 Using Knowledge of Structures and Functions Achievement Standard, Advanced: Students create multiple solutions to specific visual arts problems that demonstrate competence in producing effective relationships between structural choices and artistic functions See entire document.

Foreign Language

Health

Health Advocacy NPH-H.5-8.7 Students will demonstrate the ability to advocate for personal, family, and community health National Health Education Standards, American Cancer Society

Language Arts

Mathematics

Social Studies

Science

Technology

Fine Arts
Music

NA-VA.9-12.2 Using Knowledge of Structures and Functions
Achievement Standard, Advanced:
Students create multiple solutions to specific visual arts problems that demonstrate competence in producing effective relationships between structural choices and artistic functions
See entire document.

Health Advocacy NPH-H.5-8.7
Students will demonstrate the ability to advocate for personal, family, and community health
National Health Education Standards, American Cancer Society