New Perspectives in Science Education

The syndrome approach developed by the German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU, 1996) is an analysis tool for identifying unsustainable developments and environmental problems in earth systems by considering them as disease patterns, the syndromes of global change. The syndrome approach aims to reduce complex environmental problems to distinct relations between system elements in a cause-and-effect-interaction (Rempfler et al, 2012).

Based on the context of climate change and the challenge of biodiversity loss two scenarios are selected to analyze a complex environmental syndrome: 1) the climate forced migration in Oceania and 2) the dramatically loss of the lobster population around the North Atlantic Island Helgoland. For both scenarios teacher students of the University Bremen develop complex simulation games based on the syndrome approach. They conduct these games with school classes and evaluated pupils’ system thinking (Ossimitz, 2000) and decision making regarding environmental problems (Riess, 2013). The findings demonstrate the high potential of the syndrome approach as a motor for an education for sustainable development (ESD) and to persuade students to participate in a formation of an ecologically compatible, economically efficient and socially suitable society.