General Chemistry Students' Understanding of Climate Change and the Chemistry Related to Climate Change

While much is known about secondary students perspectives of climate change, rather less is known about undergraduate students' perspectives. The purpose of this study is to investigate general chemistry students' understanding of the chemistry underlying climate change. Findings that emerged from the analysis of the 24 interviews indicate that students confuse the greenhouse effect, global warming, and the ozone layer. In terms of chemistry concepts, the students lack a particulate-level understanding of greenhouse gases, making it difficult for them to understand the mechanism of the greenhouse effect and corresponding links to the impact of increasing carbon dioxide concentrations and climate change.