LVI Chemistry Projects

Last week our LVI Chemists presented research posters to their classmates, Academic Scholars and teachers. Students were given a title to investigate and then were tasked with not only producing a poster on their concept but summarising their findings in a 2-minute presentation.

Topics were chosen to match the interests and aspirations of the individuals, although they were given the opportunity to change their titles if they were less than impressed with what we had chosen. The talks varied from semiconductors to anaesthetics, violins to animal communication, and coffee to building materials. We were blown away by the efforts put in by each student, and the quality of the presentations given. Students engaged the audience with a smile and we were even treated to some homemade confectionery.

As it was also a competition, we also had the difficult task of choosing a winner. Special mentions from the staff went to Angela's colourful poster on Rock Candy and Zoe's interesting poster on Hydrogen Fuel Cells. From a chemistry point of view, the posters were judged on five criteria: communication, appearance, content, references (one of our practical endorsement criteria) and also the length of the presentation.

Whilst it was a very close run competition, the overall winner was Ruby with her poster on the Chemistry of Poisons. Ruby enlightened the audience on the origins of the phrase "mad as a hatter" before looking at the effects of mercury and its compounds as poisons. Well done to all of the LVI chemists who worked so hard in producing and presenting their posters. A selection of these posters will be visible on the academic trail on Speech Day, with others displayed throughout the chemistry labs.

- Dave Free, Subject Lead Chemistry