M3S CDT Sixth Form Event

M3S CDT 2011 cohort

June 2014

The Aim: to organise a one day event aimed at sixth-form students in the process of applying to university

The 6th Form Students: 40 students from the City and Islington Sixth Form College

The Results: Feedback from both the students and the school was overwhelmingly positive. Several students are now

considering studying chemistry at university or applying to UCL who were not considering it before

IR Spectroscopy Workshop: Students were provided with samples to run

and brought their own aspirin samples made

the week before at school

Computational chemistry session: By carrying out their own simulations of water

molecules, students were shown what the

growing field of computational chemistry is like

in practice

UCL Campus Tour: Students were taken on an exciting tour of the

vibrant UCL campus by UCL's professional tour guides, followed by a brief

tour of the Chemistry Department and lab facilities with M3S students.

UCL Collections and

Museums: The students were

sub-divided into groups for one of

three activities designed to introduce

them to UCL’s many collections and

to highlight different career

opportunities for graduate scientists.

A special thanks goes out to Ashley Shields and Jane Yates who organised the event, as well as Dr Zhimei Du and Prof Nora de

Leuuw, and all the industrial sponsors that support the doctoral training centre in Molecular Modelling and Materials Science.

Professor Alwyn Davies demonstrated items from

UCL’s Chemistry Collection, here showing the

students William Ramsay’s tubes of noble gases and

Nobel Prize

Nick Booth, director of the Rock Room and UCL Collections,

led a tour of UCL’s smaller collections, including the NASA

Imaging Facility and a Geosciences laboratory

Dr. Alice Stevenson discussed the

importance of analytical chemistry during a

tour of the Petrie Museum