Learning Domain Knowledge and Systems Thinking using Qualitative Representations in Secondary Education (grade 8-9)

This contribution presents three lesson activities for lower secondary education that were developed to teach system thinking in concert with subject matter. The pedagogical approach is described, leading to a practical design philosophy for lesson activities using qualitative representations. These representations allow for capturing basic qualitative notions, such as the entities that constitute the system, their changeable features referred to as quantities, and cause-effect relations that propagate changes between these quantities.