Professor who wants school science to come back with a bang

As a pioneer of fertility treatment, he has transformed the lives of thousands of childless couples, carved out a successful career as a broadcaster and written countless books making the medical world digestible for a mainstream audience. So when he realised traditional science lessons had become rather boring affairs, devoid of the usual explosions and liberal use of Bunsen burners, he decided to open up his own children's laboratory.

"When you go into most schools, what you see are classes of bored children watching teachers carry out experiments," says Lord Winston – he was made a life peer in 1995 and currently sits in the Labour benches in the House of Lords. "There's no fun at all in that. What we want is for teachers to be watching the children doing experiments. That really is the only way they will learn and be inspired.

"We know from research that hands-on practical work, doing experiments, making explosions is what gets children excited about science. Unfortunately, many state schools don't have adequate laboratories or resources and the ever-growing health and safety legislation has made some nervous of re-introducing a practical element.

"Unfortunately, this will inevitably have a knock-on effect on the numbers who go on to study science at A-level and university, putting the UK at a disadvantage at a time when science and innovation is of enormous social and economic importance."

Lord Winston's Reach Out Lab has been up and running since September and while Peter Mandelson, Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, gave it the official seal of approval last week, 1,500 students have already passed through its doors.

Aged between eight and 18, the pupils are given a now rare chance to carry out their own chemical reactions and put the classroom theory into practice under the guidance of university scientists.

The lab is based at Imperial College London, but there is hope it could be rolled out to other parts of the country as part of a nationwide drive to improve the number and quality of students taking science at A-level and beyond.

"There's a wow factor about the laboratory which is immediately obvious as soon as you walk in," says Lord Winston, ahead of an event at Sheffield Hallam University where he is chancellor. "These kids really

enjoy the science and hopefully that enthusiasm is something they take back with them to the classroom.

"Sometimes universities are reluctant to open their doors to the public, but if they want to ensure a steady stream of high calibre undergraduates, they have a responsibility to inspire and inform.

"We are tracking what happens to the pupils attending the lab over a 10-year period to see what effect participation has on their later

academic and career choices. However, I think we will only be really successful if we can encourage other universities to follow suit. Ultimately, what I want is a network of universities engaged in this kind of activity across Britain where young people are given their first taste of the endless possibilities of working in science."

Lord Winston has spent more than four decades working in medicine and, thanks to his series of TV programmes, has become one of its most instantly recognisable faces, but he has never put the profession on a pedestal. So much so, his latest book Bad Ideas: An Arresting History of Our Inventions is a journey through the dark side of every human advances, from the use of antibiotics to the discovery of the laser.

"Throughout my career, I have always thought it important to

be honest about the possibilities and limitations of science," he says. "Antibiotics, for example, have revolutionised medicine, but they have been too widely prescribed and that, combined with our attempts to keep children away from every possible infection, means we have

certainly increased the risk of asthma.

"When people say science is the answer to everything, it always makes me a little nervous, because it has its downsides. However, we can

learn so much by looking back at past breakthroughs and every negative development has as much to teach us as the positive outcomes. Science has been good to me and now what I really want is to pass that passion on."