Clifton College Website

Chemistry

Chemistry remains a very popular subject at Clifton. Everyone takes the subject up to GCSE; most do Chemistry as a separate subject and some do Chemistry as part of "Dual Science".

Head of Chemistry
Dr Timothy Greene BA DPhil
Teachers
Mrs Rachel E Crosby BSc (Hons) PGCE Mrs Gillian Donald BSc Mr Oliver Dunning BSc Mr Jonathan Gardner MChem Mr Peter Middleton MA Mrs Ruth Williams BSc
Chief Chemistry Technician
Mrs Jacky Baldwin
Chemistry Assistant
Ms Sam Randall

Resources

Each of our five teaching rooms is also a fully equipment laboratory with full services, apparatus, fume cupboard, TV + video as well as a computer which can be used with a computer projector to show networked CD Roms etc.

Teaching

Chemistry at Clifton is a very practical subject with experimental work seen as the core of the course both up to GCSE and A Level. In addition, the art of the Chemistry Demonstration is still alive and well at Clifton! The A2 course work consists of a 3-4 week Investigation - we have a smaller research lab where many of the students can keep their project set up for the duration of their investigation.

Some recent A2 Investigations:

What's in Wine?
Analysing for Vitamin C in food and drink
Oscillating Reactions
Aspirin: What is the best value for money?
Bleaches: Which is the best buy?
The Neutralising power of Antacids
Investigating the concentration of Lead in petrol
Finding ways of determining the copper ion concentration in solutions
Investigating the Harcourt-Essen reaction

Industrial

The Salters Advanced Chemistry course includes a section entitled Visiting The Chemical Industry. During the last six years we have visited a number of different Chemical plants around the Bristol area.

Chemistry Club

Chemistry Club takes place each week on tuesday afternoons when a member of the chemistry staff supervises mainly Third, Fourth and Fifth Form pupils carrying out their own experiments. Recent mini-projects have included making coloured precipitates - pupils have tried to make as many different coloured precipitates as they can and to understand the chemistry going on in preparing them.

Other pupils have investigated nitrogen triiodide - this is an interesting compound which explodes spontaneously when the smallest amount of pressure is exerted on it - clearly this makes it fascinating to investigate but you have to make sure you leave none of it behind at the end!