Balancing the atmospheric budget is an issue that concerns scientists, but the constant misconceptions students have about the atmospheric budget has Collin Reichert, graduate assistant teacher in geological and atmospheric sciences, more concerned.

“The nature of the problem is that students don’t understand if we even stabilize our emissions back to recovering levels, it’s not sufficient enough drop to stop the greenhouse gas rise,” Reichert said.

Each year an estimated 8 billion gigatons are emitted — 4 billion gigatons are absorbed by trees and oceans while the other 4 billion stays in the atmosphere.

The only way to stop carbon emissions from increasing by 4 billion tons would entail a drastic change in lifestyle and energy sources, Reichert said.

“People assume that if you just stabilize emissions then the atmosphere carbon will stabilize as well, but that’s not the case because what you’re putting into the atmosphere is still going to be greater than what’s coming out,” Reichert said.

To address the issue, Reichert presented his research last Friday to students and faculty, showing data collected from surveys taken from a majority of Iowa State intro to geology students.

“The majority of the 1000 students surveyed from an introductory geology course had very poor understandings of budget problems,” Reichert said.

Not only undergrads but MIT graduates with backgrounds in physics and calculus had similair misunderstandings of budgets.

Reichert hypothesizes this abundant misunderstanding has something to do with the complexity of climate change policies.

“[Students] assume that when our emissions are greatest, that’s when CO2 levels will be greatest; when emissions are lowest, that’s when CO2 levels will be lowest.”

Reichert had his students study real-world buisness scenarios, he assigned them three different tasks to gain a better understanding of how budgets work.

The first task given was the sink simultation, as water goes in and out of a sink to control the inflow rate.

“We asked them questions based on the conditions of inflow and outflow of water going into the sink, what happens with overall water levels in your sink,” Reichert said.

The second task involved solar radiation budgets in the atmosphere, the incoming solar radiation and outgoing longwave radiation and its relationship to temperature throughout the year.

The third task had students look at bank accounts. Students observed the total amount of deposits and withdrawals and how that effects overall bank balance.

The result was a problem called cognitive conflict, where students were challenged with the misconceptions they have.

“We found out that students have a misunderstanding about how these budgets work and that cognitive conflict essentially gives them the answer to the questions but presents it to them in a way that addresses directly what we think they have in their mind with matching the input pattern with the output,” said Cinzia Cervato, professor in geological and atmospheric sciences. “It’s how students’ minds choose to interpret data that we’re trying to figure out,” Cervato said.

“We are expecting them to go and make that choice, and we’re assuring them that that choice is incorrect when you put all things together,” Cervato said.

Reichert said he hopes people understand this common misconception, and discussing his research to students and faculty was an opportunity he hoped outreach to those uninformed.

“What I want people to take away from my work is something that educators have known for a long time and that has to do with the way people learn and a lot of times we assume,” Reichert said.

“What my research shows is that if you just rely on lectures, these misconceptions that people have just persist, [students are] not going to give those ideas up unless they’re challenged on those ideas and they’re shown why they’re inaccurate, what the scientifically accepted idea is and then they have to be convinced that it’s superior to their old idea before they can latch onto that.”