Descripción

The research was born in response to the environmental behavior of the students of the Institución Educativa Santa María Goretti and their low performance in the areas of citizenship and environmental literacy and science in the Saber 11 and Pisa tests. Since the diagnosis revealed a lack of preparation of Colombian students to face complex contemporary challenges, the purpose of this research was to strengthen the competence for sustainability-systemic thinking within the learning of science and environmental education, fostering skills, attitudes and knowledge that promote the holistic analysis of problems, especially in the environmental field, so that students are able to make sound and ethical decisions for problem solving. The methodology was qualitative, with a critical social approach and action research type. The instrument used was the semi-structured interview; in addition, a didactic strategy based on collaborative work and case study was implemented for seventh-grade students, through which systemic thinking was strengthened. In the end, the students demonstrated a greater capacity to deepen their understanding of the causes and consequences of environmental facts and phenomena, as well as to identify complex cause-effect relationships that are neither linear nor close in time between interdependent environmental factors.