Scientific evidences suggest the involvement of human actions into global climate changes (GCCs), either as intensifying them, or mitigating and adapting to theirs effects, implying the relevance of psychological aspects of the problem. The objective of this study was to investigate adolescents' vision of global warming (GW), an important part of GCCs. The participants were 323 students of junior high and high school levels, 202 girls and 121 boys, with ages between 12 and 19 years (average was 15 years), who responded a questionnaire containing an open query about GW. Results showed that their knowledge of the subject is superficial; the students perceive it as a generic environmental problem, and confound it with other types of problems, such as pollution. The interdependent chain of phenomena related to GCCs, such as the greenhouse gases, was mentioned by rare respondents, as it also happened for the local implications of the problem.
global warming; global climate changes; adolescents; knowledge; perception
