Abstract Today, there are some global challenges faced by the earth and social systems, such as sustainable development, climate change, environmental degradation and so on. It is necessary for workers in chemistry education and other fields to adopt system thinking methods, because it's not enough to solve those challenges just by using reductionist methods. This paper reviews the research progress of foreign scholars in understanding the complexity of chemistry discipline system, the hierarchy of chemistry learning system and the integration of chemistry education system by using system thinking in chemistry (STC). The STC characteristics are summarized for attaching importance to interdisciplinarity, thinking comprehensively about the problem of target system, and emphasizing the concept of global sustainable development. It is suggested to strengthen the cooperation between internal and external systems of chemistry education, attach importance to the interdisciplinary and systematic chemistry courses and teaching in each section, and pay attention to the students' different cognitive modes to solve chemistry problems.
LI Chuan, LIU Jing-Hua. The Background, Application and Characteristic of System Thinking in Chemistry[J]. Chinese Journal of Chemical Education, 2021, 42(23): 7-16.
