Salters’ Festival of Chemistry, 23rd March

At The University of Cambridge, 23rd March, Alexa Holder, Lauren Gissing, Josh Chaloner and Daniel Woodward represented Stowmarket Middle School in the Salters’ Festival of Chemistry.

After a short journey by train from Stowmarket to The University of Cambridge, the students were introduced to their first chemistry challenge. There had been a murder! Five suspects had been apprehended by police and the challenge was to identify the culprit. A sample of a mysterious powder found at the crime scene was tested against a sample from each of the five suspects.

The students used their knowledge of the colour of metals when placed into a Bunsen burner

flame and the reactions of the these powders with nitric acid, silver nitrate and barium nitrate to distinguish between the powders and successfully identify the culprit.

The second challenge was to identify the amount of iron in a range of vitamin pills. This was an advanced procedure and involved the use of a spectrometer. The students had to prepare a known solution and compare this to solutions of vitamin pills to determine the concentration of iron using the spectrometer!

A enthralling day came to a loud and explosive conclusion as the students witnessed a lecture by Dr Peter Wothers ‘The Wothers guide to the periodic table – Group 1, the alkali metals’.

In this demonstration-packed lecture Dr Wothers explored the reactions of these most reactive elements and answered the questions:

How is hydrogen related to this family of metals?

What would our streets be like if sodium was replaced by rubidium?

How much ‘deader’ could the Dead Sea get?

How does lithium power our world and clear our minds?

See the liquid gold of caesium.

A fantastic day was had by all.