THE USE OF COOPERATIVE LEARNING IN DISPELLING STUDENT MISCONCEPTIONS ON CLIMATE CHANGE

Misconceptions may be characterized as wrong or inaccurate views of a particular issue which, due to lack of clarity, are seen or perceived wrongly. Students hold misconceptions about many issues and subjects, including in respect of climate change. Most alarming about misconceptions is that if people continue to build knowledge on such misunderstandings, this may have serious impacts on their learning. Following a brief literature review on cooperative learning, this paper adopts a research methodology which a) defines what a misconception is, b) lists possible sources of misconceptions, c) discusses five misconceptions students often have about climate change and d) puts forward some cooperative learning techniques teachers can use to handle the problem.