Secondary students’ ideas about scientific concepts underlying climate change

Abstract

We present ideas about concepts underlying climate change, held by students in years 9 and 10. Misconceptions about climate change are common among students, and may be due to misconceptions about underlying concepts. To investigate this, we developed the Climate Change Concept Inventory (CCCI), and trialed it with 229 students; corroborating findings through focus group interviews. Our interview method and data analysis methods are described. Findings included overestimation of human contributions to atmospheric carbon inputs, ultra violet radiation in sunlight, and greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Students were unaware that CO₂ dissolves in water, and of the role of oceans in the carbon cycle. Greenhouse gases other than CO₂ were rarely known. Earth’s energy balance and black body radiation were not well understood. There were misconceptions about interactions between electromagnetic radiation and atmospheric gases; and limited understanding of carbon chemistry. The CCCI is available from the corresponding author.

Keywords:

• Concept inventory
• climate change
• high school students
• misconceptions
• focus group interviews
• carbon cycle

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by an Australian Postgraduate Award.

Notes on contributors

Lorna Jarrett

Lorna Jarrett is a lecturer in physics. She trained in Scotland as a high school physics teacher and taught in Australian schools for 10 years. Her Doctoral research was inspired by observations of students’ consistent difficulties with the topics of climate change and ozone depletion. Her primary research area is the school–university nexus, including the development and evaluation of outreach and enrichment activities for students of all ages, and professional learning for teachers. She also has a research interest in the characteristics of successful transition subjects for undergraduates.

George Takacs

George Takacs is a senior lecturer in physics. Over several decades, he has taught across all undergraduate levels and physics subject areas, developing subjects in biomedical physics, climate and energy, relativity and cosmology, and most recently atmospheric physics. His current research interests are statistical climatology and paleoclimate.