How do we engage more youth in science? You might say that this is a “good question” – and that’s precisely the key. We need to leverage children’s natural propensity to ask questions.

Most young children are born scientists, often frustrating their parents and teachers with a deluge of questions, perpetually asking “but why?” For some reason, though, a child’s desire to explore often wanes with age. Only a select few retain their curiosity and grow up to make world-changing breakthroughs in science.

Science is as much, if not more, about asking questions as it is about getting the right answers. In fact, asking good questions is at the very heart of the scientific method itself – as chemist Barry Sharpless put it in his Nobel acceptance speech, the scientific method is “the game of 20 questions played in the language of science”.

And yet, the way in which science is usually taught in schools focuses entirely on the answers, often quelling children’s natural curiosity. Teachers and schools, of course, give priority to answers for practical reasons: students are being prepared to take multiple-choice tests and college entrance exams.


If you look at the work of scientists who have won a Nobel prize, it quickly becomes clear that great scientific work begins with the posing of a great question. So it occurred to me and my colleagues at the Molecular Frontiers Foundation that perhaps a prestigious award for children – a sort of Nobel prize for kids – would go far in nurturing their inquisitiveness.

For the past 18 months, we have been developing the Molecular Frontiers Inquiry Prize.

Starting this May, the prize will be awarded annually to an equal number of girls and boys from around the world for posing the most penetrating and insightful questions related to molecular science, which encompasses everything from physics and chemistry to physiology and medicine.

The questions will be judged by a panel of eminent scientists, including several Nobel laureates, and selected winners will be invited to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm to mingle with top scientists.

My hope is that the scientists who will serve as mentors and judges will not only gain insights into what the next generation is thinking about, but will also be nudged towards their own scientific breakthroughs as a result of interacting with inquisitive children’s minds – a thus-far untapped resource in the scientific process.

Over the last century, science and technology have progressed at breakneck speed, spawning ethical, moral, and political dilemmas from nuclear power and global warming, to the bioethics of cloning and genetically modified foods.

If it was ever crucial for the average citizen to possess an inquisitive mind, it is now. We need to cultivate a culture of uninhibited inquiry – a culture that will inspire young people and affect how they will act as adults.

I believe that if children are taught to value their investigative skills, they will be less likely to blindly accept the statements of advertisers, politicians and religious leaders, ultimately presenting a harder target for fundamentalist ideologies.

So, if you are under 18, ask a question at www.MoleClues.org by 7 May 2008. And, if you are a parent or teacher, go ahead and tell your children that they could possibly win a prize for asking that classic question: “But why?”