Activities for Secondary Schools and Colleges
Salter’s Festival of Chemistry
Every spring, we host discovery days for local secondary schools. Each school bring a team of four Year 10 student who take part in inspiring programme of activities, including hands-on practical chemistry experiments in our teaching laboratories.
Salter's Festivals of Chemistry take place across the UK and Ireland and are an initiative of The Salter’s Institute in partnership with The Royal Society of Chemistry.
Teachers: For more information and to register a place for your school at a festival visit the Salter's Institute page.
Spectroscopy Workshop
The aim of this workshop is to supplement the student’s understanding of spectroscopic techniques and interpreting spectra studied in AS and A2 level Chemistry. The students will engage in sessions about nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, mass spectrometry and infrared spectroscopy. Using these analytical techniques, they will deduce the structure of the unknown compound.
Teachers: Workshops run on selected Wednesday afternoons in the Autumn term, and each workshop runs approximately 1:15pm – 4:30pm.
If you are interested in bringing your students to one of these workshops please contact Samantha Tang for more information and to book.
The workshops are very popular and places are allocated on a first-come first served basis; each workshop accommodates up to 50 students and we may therefore book multiple schools onto the same workshop date.
For the IR session the students will be working in the undergraduate teaching lab; it is therefore essential that ALL visitors, students and staff, wear appropriate attire i.e. no bare midriffs/legs/ankles, no open shoes.
Chemistry Olympiad
The UK Chemistry Olympiad is a competition open to all secondary schools and colleges in the British Isles. The competition is designed to challenge students, providing an opportunity to develop for students to develop their thinking and problem-solving skills, and to test their existing knowledge of chemistry in real-world situations.
At the University of Nottingham, we are pleased to host round two of the competition, where 30 of the highest-scoring students from round one join us, in April each year, for a stimulating long weekend of training and assessments.
For more information and to register, visit the UK Chemistry Olympiad page.
Residential Summer Schools
As part of one week-long residential summer schools held at the University of Nottingham, the School of Chemistry contribute practical, lab-based sessions that explore research topics and develop laboratory skills. Students attending these summer schools have the opportunity to get a taste of university life and experience a varied programme that incorporates academic, social and personal development.
For full details on the summer schools and entry criteria visit the University’s Schools and Colleges Liaison page.
Further resources for schools
A number of organisations provide useful resources to support schools and teachers. These include :
Royal Society of Chemistry
Issac Physics - Physical Chemistry Resources