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Posted on January 11th 2017
Year 13 Chemistry Trip
Chemistry ICL trip report
On the 9th of January 2017 year 13 chemistry students from Chobham academy attended a one day course at the outreach lab in the Skempton building of the Imperial College London Campus in South Kensington.
Once we arrived, the students were immediately immersed in preparing for the planned practical activities taking full advantage of the expert chemistry mentoring and advanced instrumentation.
The laboratory suite was well resourced, including iPads, calculators and worksheets. In the session students completed a Wittig reaction followed by filtration and re-crystallisation to obtain a pure solid product. They performed their own calculations and analysis of the product for purity and yield. Students were able to further analyse their product using bench top proton NMR and IR instruments, something that is not possible in most schools in the UK.
The mentors were attentive and explained steps clearly but allowed students to work independently and justify their own conclusions.
They demonstrated the use and mastery of many practical skills in the session including CPACs 1, 2a, 2b,3b, 4b, 5b. These are all required for the award of the A-level chemistry practical endorsement and will be written up in their lab books.
Overall it was a very engaging session as is expected for practical chemistry. The students gained valuable skills and experience in preparation for written assessment of the required practical knowledge and understanding in the A-level course.
The session finished at 16:30 and the students departed at 17:00 in a minibus bound for Stratford station.
