Term	Definition
Resilience	The capacity of a social–ecological system to adapt and reorganize in such a way as to absorb the effects of a perturbation and maintain essentially the same system functions and processes (Gallopin 2006).
Resilience thinking	A particular approach that assists understanding, analysis, and practice of environmental stewardship in complex social and ecological systems. The approach includes a wide range of interrelated concepts (including resilience) and is underpinned by many principles from systems thinking (Walker and Salt 2006).
Systems thinking	A suite of approaches that investigates, using various methods, the interactions between different components within a system. This includes understanding how changes in one component affect other components, and the emergent behaviour of the system that arises from these interactions (e.g., Sterman 2000). Note that while it is difficult to separate resilience thinking from systems thinking, the latter has traditionally not included key concepts that are typically associated with the former, such as panarchies, adaptive cycles, adaptive co-management, and transformation. Resilience thinking therefore necessarily includes systems thinking, while systems thinking does not imply application of the concepts from resilience thinking.
Teaching resilience thinking	The process by which the approach is taught. This is different from ‘teaching thinking’ which involves the processes used to assist development of analytical, higher order, and other aspects of cognition rather than simply the teaching of subject content per se (Perkins 2007, Perkins et al. 2000). Instructional processes and practices can be designed to teach resilience thinking, systems thinking, or higher order thinking (e.g., critical thinking) separately or in an integrated way.