This narrative review synthesizes conceptual frameworks, empirical evidence, and pedagogical approaches that support the integration of systems thinking into sustainability education across K–12 and higher education. Publications were purposively selected based on conceptual significance, empirical rigor, pedagogical relevance, and contextual diversity, with searches conducted across Web of Science, Scopus, ERIC, and Google Scholar. The analysis identified several recurring instructional patterns, as follows: the use of feedback-loop reasoning to connect scientific and social systems; the role of conceptual modeling and visual representations; and the value of inquiry-based, project-based, and socio-scientific issue frameworks in promoting systems-oriented understanding. Across educational levels, the review highlights consistent evidence that systems thinking can be taught effectively when learning activities scaffold students’ construction of system models, encourage interdisciplinary reasoning, and explicitly address dynamic processes such as accumulation, time delays, and unintended consequences. Case examples from K–12 and teacher education illustrate how visual modeling, simulations, and carefully designed task structures foster deeper understanding of socio-ecological interactions. The review also identifies key implications for curriculum design, teacher professional development, and assessment, emphasizing the need for sustained integration rather than one-time activities. Overall, this synthesis demonstrates that systems thinking is a foundational competency for sustainability education and provides educators with practical frameworks, strategies, and examples for meaningful classroom implementation. The findings underscore the importance of aligning pedagogical design, curricular structures, and assessment practices to cultivate students’ ability to reason about complex systems.

Modeling and systems thinking skills, as well as scientific understanding, are necessary for comprehending complex, food-related processes. The aim of this research was to evaluate the effect of food-related learning units on graduate students’ systems thinking and modeling skills, as well as on their understanding of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) issues. In this research, six STEM experts constructed a conceptual model of the codfish tracking process using Object-Process Methodology. Next, 15 STEM graduate students, who are prospective teachers, participated in a graduate course, which includes four online units on food production processes based on their respective models. Research tools included an expert focus group, student assignments, and questionnaires. Modeling and scientific understanding rubrics were adapted and validated for analysis of the assignments. We found a significant difference in the scores of systems thinking and modeling skills between students with modeling background and those without. Based of students’ feedback along the course, learning in context of food and sustainability also contributed to developing these skills. The contribution is the combination of food production and conceptual models for developing STEM teachers’ systems thinking and modeling skills, and their scientific understanding of food processes and sustainability issues.

Transitioning from traditional teaching to self-regulated learning (SRL) necessitates supporting 21st-century teachers by developing their self-regulated teaching (SRT) skills. This study explores teachers’ and students’ SRL. Our goal was to identify gaps and similarities between teachers' and students' SRL in the context of school and professional development programs. The research tool included the Teachers-Students Questionnaire for Self-Regulated Learning (T-SQsrl) alongside reflection for formative assessment and data collection. We culturally and professionally tailored a teacher version to enable self-assessment, emphasizing the reflection skill, while the student version was designed to map SRL for learning intervention and adaptations. Validation was done with 154 teachers and 208 students, employing factor analysis. The teacher version comprises 31 closed-ended items and an open-ended reflective question, while the student version features 15 closed-ended items. Both versions encompass SRL sub-processes, such as goal-setting, task-strategy, self-efficacy, help-seeking, elaboration, and reflection. Findings showed that teachers' SRL emphasized self-efficacy and task-strategy skills with lower levels of goal-setting and help-seeking skills. The students presented a lower level of future-oriented reflection, yet their help-seeking skill emerged as a strength. Methodologically, we developed an effective tool for assessing teachers' SRL with an emphasis on reflection along with assessing their students' SRL.

Contribution: Model-based learning improves systems thinking (ST) based on students’ prior knowledge and gender. Relations were found between textual, visual, and mixed question types and student achievements. Background: ST is essential to judicious decision-making and problem-solving. Undergraduate students can be taught to apply better ST, and analysis of their online systems modeling processes can improve their ST. Research Questions: 1) What is the effect, if any, of online learning on the ST and conceptual modeling skill levels of undergraduate engineering students? 2) What differences are there, if any, between students’ ST, conceptual modeling, and scores in textual, visual, and mixed question types based on their prior knowledge levels? and 3) Are there any gender differences in student performance, and if so, what are they? Methodology: The research participants were 157 undergraduate engineering students who took part in a mandatory second-year course, during which data were collected and analyzed quantitatively. Findings: Students with disparate prior knowledge differed significantly from each other in their overall ST mean score and in the mean scores of the various question types. Gender differences in ST and its relative improvement were also found.

Systems thinking and modeling are two critical 21st-century skills that teachers and educators are expected to impart to students, and students are expected to acquire and master them as part of their preparation to become literate citizens of a society and environment that is becoming ever more complex. Systems thinking is a thought process in which assumptions about interactions among interconnected elements of a system or a phenomenon can help predict the system’s behavior, outcomes, and in the case of human-made artifacts, the value to its beneficiaries. Conceptual modeling involves the simultaneous visual and textual representation of one’s ideas about a phenomenon or system in science or engineering. The qualitative study described here aimed to examine the effect of an online interdisciplinary asynchronous course on the development of systems thinking and conceptual modeling skills among pre- and in-service science and engineering teachers. Engaging in a qualitative case study with an exploratory orientation, we investigated how science and engineering teachers and teacher educators coped with (a) online learning of conceptual modeling and systems thinking using Object-Process Methodology in a food and sustainability context, and (b) developing an online assignment for teaching those skills to their students and assessing them. Research tools included the online assignment that the participants developed, a dedicated rubric for analyzing their assignments, accounting for use of modeling and systems concepts and the integration of sustainability and COVID-19 issues, a variety of thinking skills, visualizations and disciplines, and a mix of closed- and open-ended questions. Additionally, the participants’ reflections were analyzed to characterize their sense of self-efficacy and academic progression. We characterize five teacher-developed assignment cases along with the related teachers’ reflections, which exposed the benefits they had gained from the online course, as well as the systems thinking and modeling challenges they had faced. Analysis of the effect of the course with emphasis on the final task reveals that this approach is effective for developing the systems thinking and modeling skills of the teachers and serves as a catalyst for their professional development. The study offers a methodological contribution by providing a basis for evaluating teachers’ assessment knowledge and skills using a six attributes rubric.