CURRICULUM// CHEMISTRY
SALTERS FESTIVAL OF
CHEMISTRY
Charlie Parker prepared and took four second year students,
James Burton, Caitlin Marshall, Izzy Rowley and Beck
Woodall to the Chemistry Salter’s Festival Competition at
the University of York. The team did extremely well coming
second overall.
Further success was achieved by Helen Andrew’s lower
sixth team, David Clifton, Alfie Hall and Lorna Pettifer.
She prepared them and took them to the Schools Analyst
Competition at the University of Hull. The team came first
placing them into the final at Manchester University!
We are delighted for the students who all worked extremely
well as a team.
The Salter’s Challenge at York University this year tasked the
students to use their problem solving skills to identify which of
the suspects stole the missing element. The students became
forensic chemists; decoding texts and running experiments in
order to solve the crime. The culprit was identified due to the
students hard work and team work!
This is what the pupils had to say…
The Salter’s Festival of Chemistry was a great opportunity
given to us by the Science Department. Heading over to York
University, all of our hearts were pounding as we talked about
the possibilities of the challenges that we were about to do.
The first challenge, the Salter’s Challenge, was incredible
fun with the four of us splitting up into pairs to find which
science teacher committed a crime. The girls split up to do
a chromatography experiment whilst the boys split up to
find powder X from a selection of white solids. After we had
finished, we went back to our teacher and had a biscuit or two
whilst we discussed what might be next.
The second and final challenge, the York University challenge,
was probably the harder of the two with us trying to figure
out the density order of some dyed liquids and bonus points
if we could manage to make a rainbow in a single test tube.
This required a lot of testing and failure, but in the end we
came up with a confident answer with a definite rainbow in
our test tube.
Next up, we watched a presentation of ‘Colourful Chemistry’,
which was all about the ways colour is used in chemistry,
including some demonstrations including dry ice and bath
ducks!
Finally it was the prize ceremony and to our credit, we ended
in an incredible 2nd place, just missing out on the top prize.
Overall this day out was incredible and I can’t recommend it
enough for younger pupils to try and get involved, especially if
you have a passion for chemistry.
Beck Woodall
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THE POCKLINGTONIAN