RT Book,_Section
T1 What are students' mental representations of climate change and the greenhouse effect?
A1 Sesto, Vanessa
A1 García-Rodeja Gayoso, Isabel
A1 Varela, Begoña
A2 Puig, Blanca
A2 Blanco Anaya, Paloma
A2 Gil Quílez, María José
A2 Grace, Marcus
K1 Climate change
K1 Greenhouse effect
K1 Mental models
K1 Science education
K1 Secondary students
AB This paper investigates the students’ mental representations of climate change and the greenhouse effect. Ninety-nine secondary education students (Grades 7, 9 and 11) in Spain, participated in this study. Data was obtained by means of an open-ended questionnaire which focused on the mechanisms, causes and actions that could slow down climate change. The students’ conceptions and mental models were identified by means of an inductive and iterative analysis of their explanations. With regards to the participants’ conceptions, the results have shown that students tend to mention generic actions to mitigate climate change, such as not polluting. With regards to the participants’ mental models, the results indicate that when students have limited previous knowledge of climate change, they are able to easily reconstruct their models by assimilating new information into existing knowledge structures. However, the evolution of extremely coherent and functional models is difficult to achieve. As educational implications, we propose creating classroom situations that will allow students to make their mental representations explicit, giving them an opportunity to compare their validity through discussion
PB Universidad de Zaragoza
SN 978-84-16723-97-3
YR 2020
FD 2020
LK https://hdl.handle.net/10347/40508
UL https://hdl.handle.net/10347/40508
LA spa
NO Sesto, V., García-Rodeja, I., & Varela, B. (2020) What are students ‘mental representations of climate change and the greenhouse effect? En M.J. Gil Quilez, & M. Grace, M. (Eds.) Biology Education Research. Contemporary topics and directions (pp. 83-96). Servicio de Publicaciones Universidad de Zaragoza
DS Minerva
RD 27 abr 2026