Public understanding of chemicals and chemical risk

Abstract

The public needs to be literate in chemistry both to understand the surrounding world and to be able to be actively involved in democratic processes. This paper concerns the public understanding of chemicals and chemical risk information. Preschool teachers and teacher students, representing the general public, have been asked about e.g. what they mean with “chemicals”, how they think chemicals are absorbed into the body and their view of the difference between natural and synthetic substances. Furthermore, their knowledge about some chemical substances – e.g. antioxidants and dioxins – have been investigated, and also their understanding of some different kinds of chemical risk information. For most of the informants “chemical” is synonymous to something synthetic, artificial, unnatural, toxic, dangerous and harmful. There seems to be a contradiction between the natural on the one hand and the toxic and chemical on the other hand. The common statement “the natural is always best” is problematized in the paper.