Document Type
Article
Publication Date
11-3-2025
Journal / Book Title
Education Sciences
Abstract
In this paper, we discuss the development of students’ systems thinking about the rock cycle as they interact with an instructional module that includes three interactive simulations and accompanying questioning. We present the reasoning of six students from a whole-class design experiment in a sixth-grade classroom to describe how students’ systems thinking may be constructed and reorganized through activity with our design. Our findings highlight a framework of students’ systems thinking about the rock cycle that builds and expands prior work to specific sub-components. We also discuss an emerging framework for supporting students’ systems thinking through careful design of simulation and questioning orchestrations. These two frameworks can be used to create other instructional modules that have the potential to develop students’ systems thinking in the context of earth science.
DOI
10.3390/educsci15111477
MSU Digital Commons Citation
Panorkou, Nicole; Provost, Amanda; and Migliore, Gabriella, "Developing Middle School Students’ Systems Thinking in Earth Science Through Dynamic Simulations: The Case of the Rock Cycle" (2025). Department of Mathematics Facuty Scholarship and Creative Works. 200.
https://digitalcommons.montclair.edu/mathsci-facpubs/200
Rights
This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Published Citation
Panorkou, N., Provost, A., & Migliore, G. (2025). Developing Middle School Students’ Systems Thinking in Earth Science Through Dynamic Simulations: The Case of the Rock Cycle. Education Sciences, 15(11), 1477. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci15111477