Salters Festival of Chemistry

On Tuesday 31 March Emily Capes, Megan Coverdale, Luca Goaten and Marcus Valentine from Year 8 represented the school in the Salters Festival of Chemistry competition at the Department of Chemistry, University of York along with 20 others schools from throughout Yorkshire.

This was the first year St. Marys college have entered the completion which is designed to introduce them to working in real chemistry laboratories and to test their chemistry knowledge and skills together with their ability to work as a team.

In the first challenge all teams had to complete a series of investigations to identify an unknown compound using chemical tests.  Teamwork and accurate measurements were essential.  After 2 hours of enjoyable (but stressful at times!) work the compound was finally identified.

After lunch there was another challenge to make a reaction change colour in a set time by varying the concentrations of the reactants.  A tricky task but our team were up to the challenge and managed a time of 43.2 seconds against a target of 45.

There followed a lecture on Colour Chemistry given by Dr Hodgson from the University.  Everyone present really enjoyed her demonstrations and explanations of the science behind them. 

When it came to prize giving time St. Marys College were, sadly, outside of the top 3 but all involved agreed it had been a very enjoyable and interesting day.

Members can click here to download pictures of the event.