As a child, I was always curious about how the world around me worked, constantly pondering science questions: How can my body work if my atoms are 99% empty space? What would happen if I fell into a black hole? How do we know so little about brains when we all have one in our heads? Twenty years later, my fascination with science and my questioning mind has only grown as I become acutely aware of how little I actually know about the world and the science that governs all of our lives. However, in the last few months, through outreach activities I have been doing, I have been questioning something else: Where does this curiosity with science within children disappear to and why?

Teenagers seem increasingly uninterested in science, much preferring to burn paper in a Bunsen burner than carry out an experiment. Are there fundamental issues with how science is taught in schools that put kids off as they progress through their education? Or are there deeper issues in the science sector that make a career in science seem unattractive? As I am part of various initiatives to get children interested in chemistry, I have been taking part in outreach activities ranging from showing children the various colours in pens via a technique called chromatography, to fuelling a mini car using only hydrogen sourced from water. The shared reaction among the children has been fascination, curiosity, and interest.

However, fast forward a few years, and this wonder seems to vanish. Engaging a science class in a secondary school becomes a formidable feat, and most teenagers seem to no longer have any interest in atoms, the periodic table, or the structure of the brain. There are undoubtedly issues with the way science is taught to students, with academic curriculums becoming outdated and lacking relevance to young people. There is also an over-reliance in GCSE and A-level sciences in memorising facts for exams, rather than actually developing a true interest in the subject. Rather than simply preparing students to pass another class test, we should be instilling an interest and curiosity in the sciences, making young people look at problems in the world as solvable and the science workplace as an environment where they will be appreciated and can be themselves without discrimination. Extensive research by the British Science Association over the course of five years on what 14-to-18-year-olds thought about science and its role in their lives highlighted some interesting considerations. The research showed that young people’s connection to science became more polarised as they grew older, opting to either become strongly connected or completely uninterested.

The association suggested that part of the reason behind this, are the challenging problems that young people are faced with as they learn, such as mitigating climate change, with 45% of young people becoming increasingly worried about it as they learn more about science. Does this explain the polarisation, with those facing these problems, thinking they can help solve them by becoming connected with science, and those fearful of them, instead preferring to avoid the issues and allow others to solve them, becoming disinterested in science?

One of the most disheartening statistics was that only 12% of young people believed that scientists genuinely represented their views and values, and only 8% believed that scientists look like them, a clear and worrying sign that the sciences lack representation. This is exemplified by the lack of women in the sciences, as well as the lack of people from minority ethnic backgrounds, with only 9% of chemistry professors in the UK being women, and less than 1% of chemistry professors in the UK identifying as black or mixed race. Another factor was demonstrated to me clearly in an outreach session with homeschooled children. When asked if they thought they could become a scientist if they wanted to, only one child put their hand up.

All of these children should feel able to become a scientist if they wanted to, but for various reasons—perhaps what they had been told or seen in the media—they don’t think they would be capable of it. It is clear that much work needs to be done by both academia and industry to increase interest in pursuing a career in the sciences, and ensuring it is an inclusive environment for all with equal opportunities. There also needs to be reform in how the sciences are taught in schools, emphasising curiosity rather than rote learning of definitions. Hopefully if this can be achieved, then the curiosity so many children have for the sciences can be nurtured and developed, rather than lost as they age. The future generations of scientists will have to solve some of the most complex problems that the world has ever faced. It is up to us to make sure that the brightest young minds are able to fully achieve what they are capable of and ensure that the desire to find answers to the unknown is kept alive.