Salters’ Festival of Chemistry

The Salters’ Institute Festival of Chemistry aim to help promote the appreciation of Chemistry and related sciences amongst the young; exciting students by doing practical Chemistry experiements and giving students responsibility to carry out investigations “like a real Chemist”.

A small group of enthusiastic students from Year 8 were delighted to take part in this one day event held at Reading University. On Wednesday 8^th May the students had the chance to take part in two activities; one in the morning and one in the afternoon. First, they were tasked with identifying an unknown compound involved in a murder mystery. The second task, in the afternoon involved adding a chemical solid to a known volume of water to produce an exact drop to a temperature of 11.5 °C. The team did fantastically and came a very close second overall in the challenge.

Commenting on the competition, budding Chemist David, said “I think the trip was great learning experience for all of us, I think we each learned new skills and improved our co-operational skills, it was also really great fun.” Fellow participant Esther added “I really enjoyed the trip and did loads of experiments that I’d never done before and it was great fun.”

The students also enjoyed a presentation on bangs and bubbles demonstrating the properties of nitrogen and solid carbon dioxide. While the students took part in these interesting experiments, teachers also had the opportunity to experience a CPD session in the morning, on incorporating careers into science lessons. Chemistry teacher, Saima Shabir, reflected, “This was particularly useful as we could discuss in groups how different schools deliver their content and a few example of alternative activities were shown.”