System concept in chemistry education: Report of an investigation involving in-service teachers.

System concept is extremely versatile in education; frequently teachers use it in an implicit way, without taking advantage of its educational potentialities. SATL (Systemic Approach to Teaching and Learning) is a method born within chemistry in the late 90’s using the system concept in education. This method transferred the general concept of system to the education field, making explicit how the change of a variable influences the whole system. This approach can be extended to interdisciplinary topics, in order to develop students’ global competences. The aim of this research is to analyze knowledge and points of view about the system concept for teaching purposes, in order to investigate in particular the chemistry role in the interdisciplinary approach. An anonymous on-line questionnaire has been administered to the Italian teachers; the collected data will be compared with those obtained from the teachers belonging to the International Baccalaureate Organization.