Students’ conceptions of uncertainties in the context of climate change

Abstract The issue of uncertainty about climate change as transparently communicated by scientists is integral to climate research. Both concepts - the complexity and the uncertainty of projection data - make climate research an exciting field and confront the population with major challenges. The scientific consensus of anthropogenic climate change is described, but there are also uncertainties, which for example, result from incomplete knowledge, creating tension in the field of climate research. This study provides an empirical contribution to climate change education, which is a central topic in Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), and shows how uncertainties are perceived from the students’ perspective. Guided interviews were conducted with high school students using Mayring’s approach of deductive category formation. We found interesting results among students in the area of uncertainties in climate modeling. Uncertainties due to limited knowledge about climate change and anthropogenic factors were less mentioned by the students, but they appeared to have much knowledge about the limits of climate modeling.