ST skills
Proposed Biology Systems Thinking (BST) framework (Momsen et al. 2022).
Each level of the BST is described using Structure-Relationship-Function language, where structures are the physical components of the system; relationships are the mechanisms that explain how structures are related; taken together, structures and behaviors interact to result in a particular system function.
The levels are intended to be hierarchical, building in complexity of reasoning and system scope. Students first identify and describe relevant structures, relationships, and boundaries of a single system (Level 1), based on the function or emergent process of interest and system's level of organization. Once the system is described, students can delve into reasoning about direct relationships (Level 2), which forms a foundation for reasoning about the system as a whole through indirect relationships, emergent properties, and consequences of changes to the system (Level 3). After practice with reasoning about single-system examples, students can apply their knowledge of system functions to infer similarities and differences in novel systems, and predict and explain how different systems affect one another at the same or different level of organization (Level 4).
Level 1. Identifying and describing the system
1a. Identify the system boundaries and the structures relevant to a particular function.
1b. Identify relationships among system structures relevant to a particular function.
1c. Organize system structures and relationships to explain how the system accomplishes its function.
Level 2. Analyzing and reasoning about relationships
2a. Characterize the qualitative nature of relationships (e.g., structural, mechanistic, static, dynamic, within-scale or transcalar).
2b. Reason about the quantitative (or relative quantitative) properties of relationships (e.g., speed, magnitude, rates of reactions).
2c. Predict and explain direct effects of relationships on system structures (e.g., positive and negative impacts of one structure on another).
Level 3. Analyzing and reasoning about the whole system
3a. Analyze a system to describe indirect effects and feedback loops (both negative and positive).
3b. Explain emergent biological phenomena, based on broad principles of biology and on knowledge and understanding of specific properties of systems. Recognize that emergent properties of systems often cannot be predicted based on knowing the structures and relationships of that particular system.
3c. Predict and explain consequences to system function resulting from changes to system boundaries, structures, or relationships (e.g., perturbations or disturbances, rate changes of dynamic processes, feedback, etc.).
Level 4. Reasoning with multiple systems
4a. Recognize patterns across systems in order to make generalizations about systems with similar underlying structure or function.
4b. Identify how systems intersect in order to explain the ways that one system’s function can impact another system at the same level of biological organization.
4c. Identify how systems intersect in order to explain the ways that one system’s function can impact another system across biological levels of organization.