> it's probably less well known and less widely taught than it should be This seems an important mechanism for science education content and instruction remain

> it's probably less well known and less widely taught than it should be This seems an important mechanism for science education content and instruction remaining wretched. Consider "a 5-year old asks 'the Sun is a ball?! What color is the ball?!". Certainly some instructors teach it correctly. But the top 10-ish most used introductory astronomy textbooks have it wrong. And thus so do most first-tier astronomy graduate students. And this state has been stable for decades. > the explanation is not novel to this article Science education research is distinct from the underlying science research. If those colleagues didn't write it up and publish it, perhaps because they didn't see chemistry education research as their field... oh well. The paper's existence makes it ever so slightly more likely some future content author gets it right, or is ever so slightly more embarrassed at having it wrong, and thus to revise it. Which over decades can sometimes move the needle. And being part of a research literature permits incremental collaborative correction, refinement, reference, and citation. > It's counterintuitive to many people that the formation of strong bonds results in the production of heat! A similar case. Some instructors do mention that attraction in bonds is almost all classical electrostatic attraction. Which makes this an intuitive extension of gravitational and electrostatic potential. But most instructors and textbooks don't. And so people struggle. Maybe a science education research paper or three might help. Or an interactive electron density model web app? (Something on my infinite todo list, using precomputed densities from GPAW:)