Organic Chemistry and Spectroscopy A Level Workshop

A full-day workshop, conceived and maintained by the School of Chemistry, Cardiff University and developed initially with support from Techniquest is designed to introduce students to methods chemists use to isolate and identify chemical compounds.

The examples chosen are highly relevant to the A level curriculum and the workshop involves the extraction of compounds, (important in determining taste and smell), from naturally occurring substances such as fruits, buds and seeds.

Students then tour the Department of Chemistry to see how ‘state-of-the-art’ techniques and instrumentation such as IR, NMR, HPLC and GC/MS are used to determine purity, and to gain an insight into chemical structures and properties.

The students see these techniques being applied to their own samples to illustrate how practical experiments are coupled with analytical and theoretical methods in structure determination.

New projects are being developed to further enhance experiences that students can enjoy which also underpin key areas of a level chemistry.




Background
The chemistry associated with this project supports key topics in A level chemistry and the content was chosen to be interesting and fun. The project gives a clear indication of what some chemists do for a living.