It's amazing the misconceptions that children and adults can form and than maintain, even when a concept is explained to them. I was once teaching a class abou

It's amazing the misconceptions that children and adults can form and than maintain, even when a concept is explained to them. I was once teaching a class about balancing forces, and was using skydivers as an example. I asked them to think about the change in forces on a skydiver when she opens her parachute. Most of them could regurgitate a basic explanation of the changes in forces, but one child chipped in to ask why the skydiver flew upwards? I explained that they continued to fall, but he and several other children all disagreed with me and they had video evidence to prove it as well, showing the skydiver flying upwards from the perspective of their buddy. It took a hastily conducted experiment with small weights and plastic bags to convince them otherwise. A friend of mine once asked me why it was that when the shadow of the Earth is falling on the moon to give a crescent shape, how is it that we can still see the moon sometimes when the sun is rising, and there can't possibly be a shadow. Again, my explanation was insufficient to persuade him, and so I went home and created a computer 3D model of the solar system, so he could see the changes in the moon from different camera angles. This is why we used to do "experiments" in science labs. You could easily describe diffusion, but then how do the learners know that it's real and not just another thing they are being told is the truth. Have them slowly dissolve iodine crystals in different temperatures of water, and even though they and you know what the outcome will be, at least they have the proof of their own eyes. Maybe the pressure on results, lack of time and lack of money is preventing some teachers from spending time conducting experiments with their children, but more need to be done to prevent them from sucking in 'evidence' from YouTube channels about the flat earth, 5G networks causing covid and vaccinations being poisonous. They need proof that their teachers are telling the truth more than 50% of the time, so they can have trust that what else remains is also the truth.