Water cycle is a fragile system that is prone to be affected by global temperature changes as well as climate change. According to UCAR Center for Science Education (2019), as climate change influences the rate of evaporation as well as precipitation, water cycle becomes accelerated. As a result, extreme weather events such as drought and/or floods are observed. What is more, climate change and accelerated water cycle triggers many feedback loops which makes the effects of climate change stronger or weaker with recurring chain events (Climate Reality Project, 2016).

Understanding these processes through education is one of the effective ways for mitigation and adaptation of climate change (Muttarak & Lutz, 2014). Therefore, science education and education for sustainable development (ESD) courses in middle school level can be considered two of the courses to integrate these concepts into the agenda. For example, elementary science classes in Turkey covers these as separate chapters (MoNE, 2018) namely, natural cycles and weather and climate change in eight-grade level. However, no specific interaction was emphasized either in the objectives or textbook content. Hence, examining students’ perceptions on the interactions of water cycle, global warming and climate change can be the first step to explore how to teach these interactions and feedback loops among them. By exploring their perception, we might be able to detect if there is any misconception in students mind so that we would be able to decide how to integrate their interactions into curricula and eliminate those misconceptions.

When the accessible literature was inspected, number of studies investigated the concepts of water cycle (e.g. Bar, 1989; Ben-zvi-Assarf & Orion, 2005; Le, Jones & Chesnutt, 2019), global warming (e.g. Hamzah, Liliawati & Samsudin, 2019; Rusilowati, Dwijananti & Khabibah, 2019), and climate change (e.g. Hestness, McGinnis & Breslyn, 2019; Jarret, Takacs, 2019). in educational context. However, no specific study was found examining the perceptions of the students on the interactions among the water cycle, global warming, and climate change.

In this study, we aimed to explore middle students’ perception on the interactions among the water cycle, global warming, and climate change. Exploring their perceptions may provide us insight about their interpretation of the interactions among them so that we could be able to detect alternative conceptions if any. Moreover, although there are studies whose results are valuable in their context, there are a limited number of studies which combine these three concepts and examine students’ notions on their interaction. Thus, this study may help enrich the literature so that further studies can be conducted by considering the interactions of climate change, global warming, and the water cycle. Correspondingly, the research question of this study was as follows:

RQ1: How middle school students perceive the interactions among water cycle, global warming, and climate change?

Content analysis method was employed within the context of the study (Fraenkel, Wallen & Hyun, 2012) since students’ written responses were primary data source. Specifically, we intended to explore patterns of the perceptions within students’ minds related to the interactions between climate change, global warming, and water cycle. Two different sampling techniques were used during the study. First, purposive sampling technique was employed to represent different districts in Ankara in our sample. In the second part, schools were decided by using convenience sampling technique. Thus, five schools from four districts were selected in Ankara, Turkey and a total of 358 eight grade students (44.7% male, 52.8% female, 2.5% missing) were participated into the research. The written task was developed by the researchers to explore middle school students’ perceptions on the interactions among the water cycle, global warming, and climate change. The task was composed on three essay questions prepared based on a text. Students, firstly, read the text which is about the effects of solar energy on the water cycle and the role of man-made greenhouse effects on the dynamics between solar energy and the water cycle. Then, it was asked to respond three essay questions based on the information given in the text. The questions were following: Q1) What could be the possible effects of trapping more solar energy in the atmosphere on the water cycle? Q2) How does global warming affect the water cycle? Q3) Is there any interaction between climate change and the water cycle? Please explain your reasoning. Data analysis was conducted by using content analysis. Inductive coding was used to determine categories and codes. Trustworthiness of the study was ensured by considering following criteria. Credibility of the study was provided by peer briefing and member checks. Transferability of the study, on the other hand, was ensured by using purposive sampling method as well as thick description of the provinces and schools’ profiles. In terms of dependability, essay items were coded by another researcher. Interrater agreement was calculated and percentage of agreement for the extended response essay items were 92.16%, 90.91%, and 89.58% respectively. External reliability was also provided by reporting researcher’s bias, and inclusion of informant participants. Last, ethical permission was also taken from the national ministry of education to ensure that no harm to the participants during the study.

Students’ perceptions on the interactions of global warming (GW), climate change (CC), and water cycle (WC) were analysed. Codes related to specific questions were given below. Table 1. Percentages on the Relationship Between GW and WC (Q2) Codes Percent (%) GW affects WC negatively 26.69% Amount of water decreases 13.52% CC occurs 9.61% Irrelevant Responses 9.61% Rate of precipitation changes 7.47% GW leads to more evaporation 7.47% Don’t know 4.98% Droughts form 3.91% Glaciers melt 3.91% Chain events occurs 3.56% Amount of water increases 3.56% GW affect WC positively 1.78% Available water decreases 1.42% No effect 1.42% GW speeds up WC 0.71% Other 0.36% Total 100% Table 2. Percentages on the Interactions (Q3) Codes Percent (%) Irrelevant 38.41% Misconceptions 27.54% Scientific Explanations 27.54% No correlation 2.90% Positive correlation 2.17% Positive relationship 1.45% Total 100.00% Table 3. Percentages on the Possible Effects (Q1) Codes Percent (%) It leads to more evaporation 21.52% Irrelevant 13.33% No idea 10.61% Amount of water decreases 8.48% Drought 8.18% Chain events 6.06% GW occurs 5.76% Rate of precipitation changes 4.85% It affects WC negatively 3.33% Amount of water increases 2.73% CC occurs 2.42% Glaciers melt 2.42% It affects WC positively 2.42% It speeds up WC 2.42% Nothing 2.12% It slows down WC 1.82% Other 0.91% It maintains WC 0.61% Total 100.00% Based on the tables, minority of the students gave scientific explanations while explaining their interactions. On the other hand, several misconceptions were observed such as increasing /decreasing amount of water in WC. These misconceptions were also compatible with the literature. In brief, apart from the recognizing the interactions, they had difficulties to explain the processes in GW, CC, and WC. Hence, we should first find key routes to eliminate these misconceptions to be able to teach them interactions and feedback loops.

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