> Consider this question - look outside at a tree. Where did all the carbon in the tree come from? You may have heard that carbon fixation in plants use a process called "photosynthesis" that involves iron ions. Where did the iron come from? If only we taught by using storytelling techniques and posing questions to students, perhaps we might have more engagement with science than we have today.

I think that level of storytelling is already routine in science education. It just lands differently with different people, especially at different ages. That's why those "things they didn't teach you in school" books are mostly full of things they really did teach you in school, because many people people who are hostile to a subject as teenagers are fascinated by it later. A kid I went to high school with sent an email to a bunch of us about 7-8 years after graduation because he was learning some information about American history that shocked and fascinated him, and he was really worked up about us not being taught it in school. He thought it had intentionally been withheld from us so we would have a rosy picture of our history and our government, but it was all standard bits of American history we were taught in history class. He remembered being bored in class, so he assumed this information wasn't shared with us, but it was, it just wasn't interesting to him at that point in his life.