The Ongoing Battle Between Science Teachers And Fake News

"Every year Patrick Engleman plays a little trick on his students. The high school chemistry teacher introduces his ninth-graders in suburban Philadelphia to an insidious substance called dihydrogen monoxide. It's involved in 80 percent of fatal car crashes. It's in every single cancer cell. This stuff, it'll burn you," he tells them."

"But dihydrogen monoxide is water. He says several of his honors classes decided to ban it based just on what he told them."

"The lesson here isn't that teenagers are gullible. It's that you can't trust everything you hear. In a time when access to information is easier than ever, Engleman says that his current students have much more to sift through than his past students. These days kids come in with all sorts of questions about things they've read online or heard elsewhere."