Children's ideas about rainforests

We have explored, using on open-form questionnaire, some of the ideas oF secondary school pupils about rainforests. Many of the pupils had an understanding of the location of rainforests. The dominant idea about the importance of the rainforests was that they provide a habitat for animals; notions that rainforests are habitats for plants and humans were expressed by fewer pupils. Few of the children mentioned that rainforest destruction might alter global climatic patterns. Some two-fifths of the pupils put forward the idea that rainforests provide oxygen, but in some eases this appeared to embrace the misconception that rainforest destruction would reduce atmospheric oxygen to a concentration which is incompatible with human life. Most of trie pupils appreciated that it is human activities which are destroying rainforests, but some children thought that pollution, such as acid rain, contributes to rainforest destruction.