Fostering Systems Thinking for Youth Leading Environmental Change: A Multinational Exploration

Abstract

Abstract More youth-based environmental engagement programs (EEPs) are needed to help combat the impact of climate change. Current programs just focus their content on individual-level personal practices (e.g., recycling); are designed to be implemented in one setting with little regard for broader implications or opportunities for contextual adaption; and collect little evaluative information about how programs are developed, implemented, and evaluated. In this article, the authors present an example of how these limitations might be addressed through Youth Leading Environmental Change (YLEC), an evidence-based international EEP designed to build young people's capacity for collective action. The goal of this analysis is to explore one specific aspect of this program, fostering systems thinking, which is a critical element of the underlying theory of engagement and a critical skill in finding approaches to dealing with complex problems. Systems thinking is a form of analysis or thought process that place...