[DSRP Evidence](https://dsrpevidence.org/)

# Can Green Building Science Support Systems Thinking for Energy Education?

Laura B. Cole; Jessica Justice; Delaney O’Brien; Jayedi Aman; Jong Bum Kim; Aysegul Akturk; Laura Zangori, 2025, Sustainability 17(15), 7008 (MDPI) — Education

Patterns: [Distinctions](https://dsrpevidence.org/pattern/distinctions), [Systems](https://dsrpevidence.org/pattern/systems), [Relationships](https://dsrpevidence.org/pattern/relationships), [Perspectives](https://dsrpevidence.org/pattern/perspectives)

## In short

Supportive independent empirical correspondence. The paper introduces DSRP as a synthesis of systems-thinking competencies, but the empirical coding itself was grounded and inductive rather than DSRP-coded. In the Discussion, the authors then explicitly interpret the emergent results through DSRP: increased Distinctions, organization into Systems, and increased Relationships. They do not claim an empirical Perspective result.

## What they found (results)

A six-week, place-based green-building energy unit was associated with increased systems thinking among rural grade 7–9 students. Students identified more system elements, organized components into larger systems, and represented more connections and energy-flow relationships after the unit. They also began to represent feedback through environmental impacts.

## What they set out to do (purpose)

A mixed-methods case study of three rural Missouri middle-school settings. Eighty-nine unique students produced 162 pre/post systems models; 73 students had paired pre/post data. Student drawings, annotations, and writing were qualitatively coded, frequencies quantified, and paired differences tested using McNemar tests.

## In more detail

Students completed a six-week Energy and Your Environment (EYE) curriculum using their own school buildings to investigate electrical, light, and thermal energy systems. The assessment asked them to draw and explain system elements and relationships. Importantly, the codebook emerged inductively rather than being imposed from DSRP. The resulting empirical structure separated individual elements from energy-flow relations, and the authors subsequently mapped those results onto DSRP as D, S, and R. Statistically significant changes included power plant→power line relationships (p < .001), environmental impacts (p < .001), power plant→environmental impact (p = .009), window design/light relationships, insulation, and several other element/relationship codes.

## Abstract

“Systems thinking (ST) is a foundational cognitive skillset to advance sustainability education but has not been well examined for learners prior to higher education. This case study research in rural middle schools in the Midwestern U.S. examines systems thinking outcomes of a place-based energy literacy unit focused on energy-efficient building design. The unit employs the science of energy-efficient, green buildings to illuminate the ways in which energy flows between natural and built environments… Growth from pre- to post-test was observed in both the identification of system elements and the linkages between elements.”

These researchers were not testing DSRP. The finding is theirs; the correspondence to DSRP is drawn by this site.

[Source](https://doi.org/10.3390/su17157008)