On Tuesday 2^nd May four keen young scientists attended a Salter’s Chemistry Festival at the University of Kent.

Teachers and students attended a short introduction to some of the subjects which are taught and some areas of research in the School of Physical Sciences. These included making batteries smaller and longer lasting, which is very useful for those that are used in mobile phones. There is also work going on to develop nanoscopic materials which can be used to carry medicines in the body and deliver the medicine to the part of the body where it is needed.

Our four students, Aidan Abbey, George Hall, James Harman and Sam Patterson then donned their lab coats and safety glasses to complete a challenge “Murder comes to Salterstown”. The boys had to solve some cryptic clues and identify some substances using chemical reactions and chromatography.

Staff had the opportunity to make a spectroscope using a CD which enabled us to see the different colours of light given out by lighting in the lecture theatre.

After a well-deserved lunch break the boys returned to complete a second challenge to make a rainbow in a burette and to test fruit to find the best one to make a simple battery.

We all attended a talk on using liquid nitrogen before the winners of each challenge were announced. Unfortunately we didn’t win, but we definitely enjoyed the day.

These are some comments from the boys:

George: I really enjoyed the festival .Thank you for taking us. I enjoyed the liquid nitrogen show and the chromatography experiment. I learnt that liquid nitrogen was minus 190 degrees and also that potatoes had hardly any voltages.  Thanks again for a fab day

Aidan: I had lots of fun at the Salters Chemistry Festival. There were lots of experiments to participate in.  I made a rainbow out of soap, a battery out of fruit, chromatography using ink and water, and finally I added chemicals to powders to see what reactions were created.  I enjoyed all of the challenges, especially the soap rainbow.  I learnt about density and about types of chemicals I hadn’t heard of before, such as sodium hydroxide.

Sam: On the trip we did lots of fun experiments and puzzles. One of the experiments was where we got this liquid and made a rainbow with it and we also made fruit batteries.

Many thanks to the four boys who tried hard in the tasks even when they found them quite challenging and also to Mr. Tillot for driving the minibus and sharing his photos from the spectroscope.

Ms Whitehead

STEM Co-ordinator and science teacher