So what might better look like? Phones/tablets are used preK on. Phones with multiple front cameras could permit a clip-on spectrometer to provide a simultaneous normal view for orientation, making it more accessible. UV and thermal IR cameras are increasingly inexpensive. Light engines for spectra synthesis regrettably seem less readily available? So what might a Kish-accessible spectrometer app look like? What might a spectra-centered preK-2 learning progression for color look like?
It seems at least vaguely plausible that color might thus be taught successfully. Imagine that were true, and gave you early-primary students with a firm grasp of color. How might that then be used, to teach other topics better? UV protection; warm clothes and insulation; Earth's thermal-management BBQ roll, cold clear nights and mountains and deserts, greenhouse gasses; ... ?
> refuse to believe something that explains a bunch of everyday phenomena
Integrated explanation of everyday phenomena does not seem a focus of current education. So perhaps refusal might reflect a lack of familiarity and comfort with such reasoning?
[1] https://www.google.com/search?q=what+color+is+water [2] http://crosstalk.cell.com/blog/why-is-the-ocean-different-co...
Looking for misconceptions is a great strategy, thanks!
https://wvbirder.wordpress.com/2016/05/22/bluebirds-and-blue...
(They are blue. Looking blue in white light is the same thing as being blue.)
If one thinks an object is the color it reflects, then add confusion about refraction, and one might easily get to "it looks blue but really isn't".
Science education echos stories, and sometimes those are less than wonderful. Like tabloid journalism narratives, missing the point and leaving readers confused and misled. As with "color from refraction, constructive and destructive interference". IIUC, that interference is mere description of wavelength-dependent differential bending - you still need to absorb the colors you don't wish emerging. But emphasizing "it's not pigment color, it's structural color!", rather than their similarity, can parse as reflection/absorption vs refraction, and conceptually interbreed with real vs apparent object color.
Stories like [1]. The "constructive interference" is "cancelling out" wavelengths, which "is why your eyes perceive" blue. Rather than say, here's one of several mechanisms for pigments to color objects.