Horrible health and medicine, chemistry jokes, and a twilight masterclass

Sir Jonathan North College (SJNC) held another successful Chemistry Week, with around 300 students getting involved in a range of activities.

By Catherine Mynott

A generous grant from the Royal Society of Chemistry IYPT Fund enabled us to run a number of different and varied activities for Chemistry Week. The theme this year was the International Year of the Periodic Table.

Lunchtime activities were based around the periodic table. Students were given cards with activities to complete – varying from practicals like flame tests to demos of burning methane bubbles, potassium in water and melting gallium.

There was a "Horrible health and medicine" session, in which students discovered all about pharmacy in the years gone by, and the gruesome methods used to cure various ailments, and there were chemistry master classes provided by Steve Althorpe from the National Space Centre. During the master classes year 9 and 10 students were entertained with two twilight sessions about comets and the periodic table.

Students were asked to produce a poster with a chemistry joke, and Director of Science Dr Sangar had to make the impossible decision about the best joke.

Finally, year 8 students made a giant periodic table using the fantastic IYPT 2019 Compound Interest element information sheets.

Thank you to our amazing science technicians, all science teachers, Mrs Vyas (our LRC manager) and KS4 triple science students for assisting with the activities.