This month 14-year-olds across the country are being asked to choose which GCSEs they will sit in two years’ time. Science, like English and maths, is compulsory, however much kids moan “it’s boring”. But for pupils at 90 schools a more exciting option is on offer: from September they will be trialling a “pop science” GCSE which includes debates such as “Why did Dolly the sheep die young?” and “Is nuclear power okay?”

Some are worried that the emphasis in this popular science course is more on pop than science. Peter Cotgreave, director of Save British Science, says: “It’s all very well using topical issues to attract pupils but there is a risk of neglecting the transfer of scientific skills. In 10 years’ time, will we still be talking about Dolly the sheep?”

But for now the sceptics are in a minority. Government advisers are desperately hoping that the topical cutting-edge formula — expected to roll out nationally in 2006 — will lure students back to science. If we are to have any scientists at all, something must be done, warns Martin Hollins at the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority.

Sixth-formers have been fleeing science in droves. Since 1988 the numbers taking science at A-level have dropped by more than 12%. In just three years, applications to study biology at university have fallen 12% and physical sciences 14%. Jonathan Osborne, of King’s College, London, one of the people who helped dream up the new syllabus, suggests that today’s children don’t like learning lists of facts.

Osborne’s view is shared by teenagers such as Robert Jones, 17, of Latymer school in north London, who ditched science after gaining a double A at GCSE. “It was learn and repeat. I couldn’t connect anything I was taught to the real world,” he says.

Students on the new GCSE course will learn about the kind of science that makes newspaper headlines — from the use of DNA-matching to solve murders to the problems of putting men on Mars.The aim is to engage pupils by answering questions about their lives. Instead of ploughing through facts on air composition, chemistry classes will discuss why asthma has risen sixfold in 25 years.

The teaching style of the new GCSE will be different too. Teenagers will be encouraged to ask open questions and build theories to test against evidence. They will, says Osborne, “be doing what scientists do”.

In the new course, as now, pupils will emerge with two GCSE passes in a course that covers chemistry, physics and biology — enabling them still to go on to take science A-levels should they so choose. Supporters hope that a new generation will be enthused by science.

“Science is in danger of dwindling away,” says Osborne. “Nowadays, children won’t sit through long lectures. We have to find a means of engaging them.”