Considering the reviewers' concerns we would like to invite you to do a major revision of the manuscripts according to the points they raised, specifically regarding conceptual change. Although the author's comments suggest some of the queries raised by the reviewers are answered elsewhere in the manuscript, the fact that this was not recognised still indicated the need for a significant revision. Items that the authors consider too long to add to the manuscript, such as the questionnaire, can be added as supplementary online materials.

Thank you for so thoroughly engaging with the review process. Having thoroughly read the paper and all of the comments and your responses, I believe that you have made suitable improvements, and correctly defined your position where necessary. However, there are some minor things that still need correcting before this study can be published:

1. Please include the pre- and post-tests, questionnaire, and other relevant material in an appendices, as it will be very beneficial for future studies and people wanting to repeat your work.
2. Despite the professional proof-reading there are some typographic and grammatical errors that need correcting, for example the first sentence has a superfluous “a”, and should read as: “Education on the subject of groundwater is crucial for sustainability.” Please read through the manuscript very carefully and make sure all of them are corrected.
3. Can you please provide a reference for the statement “which is defined as water within porous and permeable rocks, is not an established everyday notion.” that occurs in the first paragraph of the introduction.
4. The labelling of Ad 1) Ad2) etc. used in the paper is confusing, please can this be better explained or formatted.

Once all of these issues have been corrected I will be very happy to publish this document, which I believe is a superb study and a potentially significant contribution to the field.

Thank you for submitting this interesting and extremely well conceived study. It is with great pleasure that I would like to accept this manuscript for publication. Thank you also for engaging so thoroughly and patiently with the peer-review process. I really think that this paper is an excellent example of an effective study in science communication, and that it contributes significantly to the literature.

Thank you again,

Sam