Las representaciones sociales y las reacciones químicas: Desde las explosiones hasta Fukushima

(Social representations and chemical reactions: From explosions to Fukushima)One of the most important structuring concepts that teachers develop in the classroom is the one of chemical change and regarding this, there is abundant literature detailing the difficulties generated by its learning. However, is not usually considered the role played by the social representations among the possible factors influencing in the construction of this concept by the students. This article shows results of a research that identifies the structure of the Social Representation that common people has about chemical reactions and the way in which this representation flows through communication media. Tus is proposed the need to broaden the investigations about the influence that social representations have in the learning of various scientific concepts at school.