Children should be given greater freedom to experiment and take risks with science, the British geneticist whose discovery of DNA profiling radically changed crime investigation said this week.
Sir Alec Jeffreys, a professor of genetics at Britain's University of Leicester, said children were missing out on the opportunity to conduct exciting experiments.
'In the UK you simply cannot do the sort of hands-on science that I could do as a child,' said Professor Jeffreys, who delivered the Shirley Boyde Memorial Lecture at the University of Hong Kong on Tuesday.
Although he acknowledged that some risk was involved, Professor Jeffreys said giving children freedom to explore could help inspire the next generation of scientists.
'There's many ways of inspiring scientists but the best way is to get your hands dirty and do it,' he said. 'I'm not saying we should take the gloves off completely but there's got to be a balance.'
Professor Jeffreys bears the scars of his own childhood experiments. After receiving his first chemistry set at the age of eight, he found out the hard way just how painful highly concentrated sulphuric acid could be when splashed on skin.