Lisa Andreasson

Global Warning... Never Heard of It: a Study About the Meaning of the Context in South African Learners' Acquisition of Scientific Knowledge Lisa Andreasson

The aim of this Minor Field study is to illuminate the South African learners' understanding of global warming and how the learners' context affects his/her knowledge. Central questions in this study are: - How is the acquisition of scientific knowledge formed in the learners' understanding? - What is causing the misconceptions of scientific knowledge? - What do the learners know about the greenhouse effect and global warming? South Africa has a rich diversity of cultures and people, which gives us the possibility to investigate how the context is affecting the learners' understanding. To carry out this study we have used a triangulation of both quantitative and qualitative methods. According to the natural science approach we used a questionnaire as a quantitative way to measure the learners' scientific knowledge. To get into the context and to analyze that knowledge, we used the qualitative methods of observations and interviews. This enabled us to get into the aim of this study in more than one perspective. We chose to write our study in English to be able to report the infomation back to our informants.