Posted on: 30 July 2006
‘Igniting Interest in Chemistry’
Trinity College hosted a Chemistry Summer School for 16 visiting A-level students from Bristol during the summer, which was sponsored by the Centre for Synthesis and Chemical Biology (CSCB) (http://www.ucd.ie/cscb) and Bristol ChemLabs.
The Summer School which took place on July 20-23 last, included such exciting and fun events as an analytical chemistry competition, balloon roulette, natural product chemistry, a science quiz and an interactive talk entitled ‘A Pollutant’s Tale’.
For the analytical chemistry competition, the group was divided into teams with the aim of comparing various makes of bleach by determining the concentration of the oxidising agent, sodium hypochlorite, in each sample. The students then had to conclude which bleach offered the best value for money.
In the case of the balloon roulette, balloons were filled with helium and others with hydrogen. For the purpose of the exercise, students held a stick with a lighted candle and took it in turns to burst the balloons. The balloons containing helium made very little noise, however, the hydrogen balloons ignited and a ball of flames shot into the air. The students left somewhat the wiser about the state of our planet.
Dr Shallcross and Mr Tim Harrison of the School of Chemistry at the University of Bristol also gave an interactive talk entitled ‘A Pollutant’s Tale’. The talk focused on the gases that make up the earth’s atmosphere and global warming. During the talk the students learnt how to make nitrogen dioxide and oxygen in a laboratory, including the combustion of methanol vapour.
Commenting on the Summer School, Trinity College’s Dr David Grayson said that it had been an enormous success. He added that there were plans next year to run the Summer School bilaterally where Irish students would also take part. There were also proposals to run teacher training courses in parallel with the initiative.
