This goes to show that there is more that goes into a misconception than simply the education and schooling they have received to date. Real life experiences and access to various information reveals the dichotomy between those students that know an answer and those that have a misconception. For another probe, students were asked to question whether or not they would be able to see an apple in complete darkness. Not very many of the students had experienced total darkness, such as that in a cave, but those that had knew there was no way to see anything without light. They didn't necessarily know the intricacies of how the eye worked but they were able to make decisions based on what they had experienced in person. These out of the classroom experiences should not be discounted and, as educators, we should push for this type of learning and exploring to occur no matter the age!
Do you know which mountain is older? Why How? What do you see?