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- Chemistry in Caithness Day 3
Chemistry in Caithness
Day 3 Wednesday 26 October 2011
The purpose of our trip to Scotland is to help the young people of Caithness celebrate the International Year of Chemistry by engaging with some interesting chemical challenges. We have spent today at Thurso High School. In the morning we worked with three S3 classes (these are students working on the first year of their Standard Grades) to investigate the iodine clock reaction. We called this workshop “Chemistry on Cue”. There were three parts to the challenge: to work out which of two solutions affected the timing of the reaction, to plot a graph to show how the time taken for the mixture to go black depended upon the concentration of this solution and from this graph work out how much solution would be needed to make the mixture turn black after 30 seconds. Each workshop culminated in a competition (for small prizes) to see who could get closest to this specified time. The students all seemed to enjoy themselves and were fully engaged with the chemistry.
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In the afternoon we worked with some younger pupils (two classes from S1, i.e. first year secondary students), who became very excited by “Just a Minute” – in which we challenged them to work out how much sodium hydrogen carbonate, citric acid and water they needed to blow up a film canister exactly one minute after they popped the lid on. The lab was filled with the sounds of shrieks and giggles as film canisters exploded loudly on all sides, hitting the ceiling with some considerable force. Once again there was a competition to round off each workshop with more prizes at stake.
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The visit gave me the opportunity to chat to students about their ambitions and I was encouraged to see that so many of them are planning to take a Higher in chemistry. It was also useful to network with the teachers at the school.
In the evening we were invited to join some scientists from Dounreay for dinner in our hotel, along with Chris Woolford, a physicist from Swindon who had flown up to Caithness to arrange the loan of a collection of meteorite samples. It was a fascinating evening with the conversation ranging from astronomy, to physics problems, to the chemistry of whisky (which we then had to sample to check out our theories). Again there was some useful networking in a most enjoyable setting. A very successful day all round.
Rainbow over Thurso