Abstract Popular media often reports on the carbon footprint of certain activities, items or people. We were curious to explore how people make sense of these news pieces, and specifically, whether and how carbon literacy (CL) and quantitative literacy (QL) influences their reasoning. We interviewed and surveyed students of various backgrounds using simulated news pieces of three carbon footprints: that of Facebook, that of the US dairy industry, and that of the US chocolate industry. We found that being highly carbon or quantitatively literate influenced participants’ reaction – but only while they were gathering information about the prompts. The effect of literacies disappeared when they were asked to decide whether the carbon footprint was worrisome or which they would tackle first as a policy-maker. We describe and categorize the strategies students used to make sense of carbon footprints, and link the frequency of using particular strategies to their carbon and quantitative literacy. Implications for future research and environmental education are discussed.

中文翻译：

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了解碳足迹：碳素养和定量素养如何影响信息收集和决策

摘要 大众媒体经常报道某些活动、物品或人的碳足迹。我们很想探索人们如何理解这些新闻，特别是碳素养 (CL) 和定量素养 (QL) 是否以及如何影响他们的推理。我们使用三种碳足迹的模拟新闻采访和调查了不同背景的学生：Facebook 的碳足迹、美国乳制品行业的碳足迹和美国巧克力行业的碳足迹。我们发现，高碳或定量识字会影响参与者的反应——但仅限于他们收集有关提示的信息时。当他们被要求决定碳足迹是令人担忧的还是他们作为决策者首先要解决的问题时，读写能力的影响就消失了。我们描述和分类学生用来理解碳足迹的策略，并将使用特定策略的频率与他们的碳和定量素养联系起来。讨论了对未来研究和环境教育的影响。