Representaciones sociales sobre cambio climático en los estudiantes de la básica primaria de la Sede Rafael Manjarrez Valle de Fonseca La Guajira

Abstract

This research work focused on identifying the social representations about climate change that students have at the Rafael Manjarrez Valle elementary school in Fonseca La Guajira. For this, a research methodology from the interpretive paradigm was used, oriented from a qualitative approach, following a diagnostic study and guided by phenomenology, articulated to social representations, applying the instruments of drawing, the interview and a Likert scale. The analysis of the results shows that the students have representations regarding the phenomenon of climate change by various sources of information, the most relevant being television, they also refer to causes and consequences, in which man is one of the main causes, but is also one of those affected by the consequences, although they also have ideas that are very isolated from their context. In the same way, there is a tendency to confuse different terms among which are: temperature, heat, climate, among others; although another aspect is the identify natural elements as the cause of climate change. The findings of these results made it possible to formulate general guidelines for the design of a didactic unit on climate change that is aimed at improving the identified social representations. When studying the social representations of complex issues such as climate change, it is possible to identify the perceptions that, about these, the students have at Rafael Manjarrez Valle elementary school, which revolve in a number of ideas regarding the causes and consequences, as well as the attitude that students have towards adaptation and mitigation processes.