Something in the Air: School Students' Ideas about Air Pollution

Abstract

A free-form questionnaire was used to explore the ideas of school students (age 11-16 years) about air pollution. Oxygen and carbon dioxide were the best-known gases in unpolluted air; carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and CFCs were the most frequently raised pollutants. Students' ideas about sources of pollutants centred on transport, industry and energy generation. Air pollution was seen as producing biological (respiratory problems, asthma in particular) and environmental (global warming, ozone layer depletion, acid rain) consequences. There was an increased appreciation in older students of specific gases in air, individual pollutants and 'abstract' consequences of pollution; younger students tended to think in more general and 'concrete' terms ('fumes', 'smoke'). The results support the notions that older students develop more abstract thinking in this context, that objects and phenomena gain meaning through their actions and that some appreciation of air pollution can be gained without a scientific knowledge of the composition of air.