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QE is to completely refurbish two Chemistry laboratories, following confirmation that it has been awarded a £100,000 award from research and education charity, the Wolfson Foundation.

The work will not only provide new equipment and fittings for the busy laboratories in the large 1970s Fern Building, but will also increase their capacity.

The Wolfson Foundation grant will be supplemented by a contribution from The Friends of Queen Elizabeth’s charity.

Headmaster Neil Enright said: “Sciences are tremendously strong at QE at all levels and we already have huge numbers studying Chemistry at A-level, many of them going on to highly regarded courses at university, such as Medicine. This award will enable us to provide them with the best, modern facilities.

“We are very grateful both to the Wolfson Foundation and to our parents, alumni and friends who give through FQE.

“We plan to carry out the work in the summer holidays this year, along with both the next phase of improvements in the Fern Building and, hopefully, the start of work on The Robert Dudley Studio – the new drama and spoken-word facility to be created within our Main Building.”

Paul Ramsbottom, chief executive of the Wolfson Foundation, said: “We are very pleased to support Queen Elizabeth’s School, enabling them to create outstanding facilities for their students.

“We hope the new Chemistry laboratories will encourage and inspire students at all levels to study Science.”

The bid to improve the two laboratories, S9 and S10, was submitted to the Wolfson Foundation last summer. The School is working with experts in the field of school laboratory installations.

Floors, ceilings, services, teachers’ stations, student workbenches and tools and fixtures will all be replaced, with new wiring and feeds for IT and utilities also included within the scope of the project.

QE’s Head of Chemistry, Amy Irvine, today spoke of her delight that the work is to go ahead.

“The facilities in those laboratories are no longer of a standard that best suits teaching practical science lessons, so this is extremely good news. The refurbishment will make it easier for us to deliver the best possible lessons. Boys of all ages here will benefit, while the work will make QE an even more attractive destination as we continue to recruit high-quality staff to the department.”

QE currently has 18 teachers and three laboratory technicians across three Science subjects, with nine of these working in Chemistry.

The Wolfson Foundation is an independent charity with a focus on research and education. Its aim is to support civil society by investing in excellent projects in science, health, heritage, humanities and the arts.

Since it was established in 1955, some £1 billion (£2 billion in real terms) has been awarded to more than 12,000 projects throughout the UK, all on the basis of expert review.

Twitter: @wolfsonfdn

A team of Sixth Form scientists were among the front-runners in a prestigious national Chemistry competition run by Cambridge University and a university in the Czech Republic.

QE’s Chem Taj team were ranked fifth out of the 42 teams competing in the Cambridge Chemistry Race, many of them drawn from the country’s leading academic schools.

The five-strong team’s score of 113 points was actually identical to the scores recorded by the teams coming third and fourth, but, in line with the rules, they were given a lower ranking based on the nature of the questions they answered.

Congratulating the Year 13 team, Head of Chemistry Julia Lister said: “The boys adapted very well to the format of the competition, which had to be run entirely online because of the lockdown, keeping their heads under the pressure of competition as they raced to answer as many questions as they could within the two-hour time limit.”

The competition was originally scheduled to take place at the University of Cambridge’s Chemistry Department.

Instead, QE’s team members, Bhargab Ghoshal, Janujan Satchi, Arnav Sharma, James Tan and Khai Tran, worked from their own homes, communicating and completing the race through the Moodle online platform. The event’s opening and closing ceremonies were broadcast on YouTube, while the video-calling platform, Gather Town, was also used.

The boys are pictured, top, at work on a problem, and above right with Dr Lister during the competition.

James said: “Although I was disappointed the competition was not taking place in Cambridge as planned, I still enjoyed it and found it to be a welcome distraction during lockdown. In particular, I liked how the questions built upon our current A-level knowledge, but also required us to research into more advanced topics, such as hemiacetals and macrocycles.”

Khai agreed, saying “it was interesting to apply the Chemistry we’ve learnt to topics beyond our specification”, while Janujan said that by working as a team, they were able to “apply different thought processes to the problem”.

Chemistry Race originated in 2015 as a Czech competition, called Chemiklání, at the University of Pardubice in the city of Pardubice, 96km east of Prague. It proved to be extremely popular among Czech pupils, and the scale of the competition rapidly grew every year.

In 2020, Adam Přáda, one of the organisers of the Czech competition and a Cambridge student, initiated a Cambridge branch of the competition, the Cambridge Chemistry Race.

Once a team answers a question successfully, they are presented with a new one and a live leader-board is updated. Half-an-hour before the ‘race’ ends, the ranking is hidden; the final winners are announced at the closing ceremony.

The questions include easy riddles, tasks of A-level difficulty and more complex chemical problems. Competitors are allowed to use books or notes, since the questions mainly aim to test problem-solving skills and chemical understanding, rather than knowledge.

Questions asked in the competition included:

Q. Imagine that somebody loses 10 kg of fat over three months. 10 kg is quite a significant amount of matter; however, we don’t see pieces of meat falling off people who lose weight. How does the “fat” leave the body? Write down the formulae of the two main substances into which fat is broken down.

A. Carbon dioxide and water. One could figure this out using common sense, by realising that we exhale carbon dioxide all the time and that camels “store” water into fat.

Q. What is the highest possible mass percentage of hydrogen (H) for a neutral hydrocarbon? Give the answer as a percentage.

A. Maximizing the mass percentage of hydrogen can be done in two ways: by complete saturation (thus we consider alkanes) and by minimizing the number of carbon atoms. This is done, because for alkanes (empirical formula CnH2n+2) the addition of one carbon atom and two hydrogen atoms shifts the mass percentages in favour of carbon. We therefore seek the shortest alkane: methane. The mass percentage of hydrogen in methane is then 25.1 %.

And finally, this was identified as one of “this year’s more difficult problems” in the closing ceremony:

Q. How many atoms are there in 1.66×10-24 moles of argon.

A. Just one.

Experts have been helping QE A-level students see the exciting topical applications of their subjects in the real world in a series of lectures streamed into the School.

Sixth-formers have already enjoyed stimulating day-long sessions on Medicine in Action, Chemistry in Action, Product Design in Action and Geography in Action, with a similar event for Biology due to take place in December.

The training days are run by The Training Partnership, the leading provider of external educational study days in the UK, and would normally be held in London, but are this year being conducted remotely because of Covid-19.

QE’s Head of Technology, Michael Noonan, said that the Product Design A-level students, and even a couple of “enthusiastic non-subject specialists”, enjoyed a “superb day” of lectures. “Favourite amongst the talks attended by students was Pioneering aeronautical innovation by Sam Rogers – an aeronautical engineer working in product development for Gravity Industries, a company who are currently developing a jetpack suit.”

One of the pupils attending, Paul Ofordu, of Year 12, said: “It was amazing to see the application of prototyping, testing and iterative design in such a high-end product development project.”

The Resourcefulness and design lecture, delivered by Kingston University Senior Lecturer Pascal Anson, stimulated a practical activity, pictured. “Here we see some examples of structures which were resourcefully developed by the students using VEX IQ and EDR Robotics game elements – great thinking on their feet!” added Mr Noonan.

Chemistry students gathered in the Main School Hall to hear engaging contributions from speakers who ranged from Andrea Sella, a synthetic chemist and broadcaster, talking about mercury – “the most beautiful element in the periodic table and the most reviled” – to marine engineer Hayley Loren exploring whether nuclear fusion could provide the solution to the world’s energy issues.

Julia Lister, QE’s Head of Chemistry, said: “The engaging Chemistry in Action lectures covered an array of topics. Streaming these lectures took students from key concepts to cutting-edge science and future directions across many applications of the subject.”

The Geography lectures were similarly wide-ranging. One talk, entitled Lessons in sustainability: An explorer’s tale, was by Jason Lewis, the first person to circumnavigate the earth without using motors or sails. Another featured academic Martin Evans, from the University of Manchester, speaking on Landscape Systems in the Anthropocene. And Emily Parry, Head of Geography, highlighted lectures on water insecurity and on how COVID-19 has impacted the Pacific Islands.

“The boys enjoyed the talks, which both built up content covered in their A-level course and extended their knowledge on a range of issues facing the planet,” she said.

“Each lecture was followed with a Q&A session in which the boys could send in questions to the lecturer. Often questions focused around what young people themselves could do to help address some of the issues explored such as climate change, river pollution and how we choose a sustainable future.”

Head of Biology Gillian Ridge said that after the forthcoming Biology in Action day, boys who attend will be invited to give a series of lunchtime presentations to the rest of their year based on the talks.

A Year 10 team’s hi-tech lockdown project was placed third in an international competition aimed at stemming the global tide of plastic pollution.

The Prata Neptunia team combined their skills in Technology, Mathematics and Chemistry and also produced a slick video presentation to promote their design for an autonomous hovercraft robot.

Competing against teams from more than 40 countries, Ashwin Sridhar, Anish Rana and Merwan Singh impressed judges from the British International Education Association with their use of artificial intelligence to tackle plastic waste in rivers and canals, reducing its harmful effects on flora and fauna.

A second QE Year 10 team, called Ocean, won the Best Effort prize in their category in the competition, which was launched in January.

Head of Technology Michael Noonan said: “My heartfelt congratulations go to the boys, who began their projects when we were deep in lockdown and thus had to overcome some significant obstacles in putting their entry together. Although narrowly missing out on the grand prize, the team are proud to have had their project acknowledged on an international scale and to have learned countless new skills along the way.”

The BIEA International STEM Innovation Challenge invited young people from the age of nine to 21 to research, write a report and design a solution to Save our shores from plastic waste through STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics). In its brief, the BIEA pointed out that one lorryload of plastic is dumped every minute worldwide – the annual equivalent in weight of 40,000 blue whales or 1.6 million elephants. The competition drew entries from schools in countries including China, the United States, Argentina, Norway and Indonesia.

Ashwin took on the role of Project Manager and Lead Scientist for Prata Neptunia, while Merwan was Lead Researcher and Anish the Lead Robotics Designer.

By using hovercraft technology informed by artificial intelligence, the trio were able to devise a design that could travel across multiple terrains, both land and water, and target different types of plastic. These notably included microplastics, which have become a huge problem worldwide because of their devastating effects on marine life.

The team learned project-management skills in order to optimise their time effectively, from the use of Gantt charts to task delegation. They designed prototypes at home, building and testing parts, and investigating processes to remove microplastics in order to determine the feasibility of their design.

As part of the overall design process, they applied skills acquired in Technology lessons before finally designing their solution on CAD software.

Their work led to an invitation from BIEA to participate in the virtual international finals, where they were awarded their third place in the 15-17 category.

Anish said: “We started our journey back in March and were quite behind, compared to other teams, which started earlier. However, through thoughtful planning and hard work, we were able to pull together to create a product we were proud of in time for the due date.”

Unable to meet up freely or access all the resources of The Queen’s Library, the boys worked from home and used technology including Zoom calls to co-ordinate their work.

“We all saw plastic pollution as a big problem all over the world: the BIEA competition has targeted a global crisis that needs fixing.”

The competition gave him and his teammates the opportunity to deploy their skills and knowledge to tackle this crisis, which, he said, has shown him “how we can all work together to solve it”.

Anish added: “Of course, we had our ups and downs, but overall the competition was a great experience with a satisfying conclusion.”

The trio’s project required some fairly advanced Science, as they investigated methods of removing plastics, which led to their inclusion of PETase, an enzyme which catalyses the hydrolysis of Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) to monomeric mono-2-hydroxyethyl terephthalate (MHET). MHET is then broken down into Ethylene glycol and Terephthalic acid (Benzene-1,4-dicarboxylic acid) using the enzyme MHETase.  The team also delved into fluid dynamics – encompassing Mathematics and Physics – to optimise their design’s motion and efficiency.

The Ocean team, Jashwanth Parimi, Utkarsh Bhamidimarri and Siddarth Jana, also started their project relatively late and had only about a month to complete it.

Jashwanth said: “During multiple Zoom calls, we learned much more about plastic pollution and, eventually, we designed an idea that we thought was suitable for solving the problem. Then we each split into our specialised areas to fulfill the requirements of the project, but we still all helped each other in each of our project areas until we finally finished.”

The team designed a multi-terrain vehicle that used a net in order to collect macro-plastics on both the ocean and the mudflats. “Our project was innovative since we tried to consider all the wildlife on all the terrains, such as fish and snails, and so on.”

All QE entrants to the Royal Society of Chemistry UK Olympiad were awarded medals after successfully completing the first round of this testing and highly-regarded competition.

Last year’s School Captain, Bhiramah Rammanohar, and his fellow Year 13 pupil, Alejandro Lynch Gonzalez (pictured centre above), both secured gold. This put the Oxbridge-bound pair, who have offers to study at Jesus College, Cambridge, and Magdalen College, Oxford, respectively, in the top 8 per cent of the nearly 3,000 candidates who competed in the élite event, now in its 52nd year.

Chemistry teacher Charani Dharmawardhane said: “All the boys should be proud of their achievement: the competition consists of challenging questions that stretch pupils beyond the A-level specification.”

QE’s eight other participants – Fozy Ahmed, Manas Madan, Tai Oyama  and Sathujan Manmatharajah, pictured above, as well as Abilash Sivathasan, Dhru Patel, Pratham Upadhyay and Rushil Shah – all won either silver or bronze medals. All are from Year 13.

“Nearly a third of the contestants in the RSC Chemistry Olympiad did not receive any award at all, so our boys have done exceptionally well,” Miss Dharmawardhane added.

The RSC describes the competition as “a unique opportunity for students to push themselves further and excel in the chemistry field”. It adds that the olympiad helps develop critical problem-solving skills and creativity, while giving entrants the “chance to test their knowledge in new, real-world situations”.

Usually the first round is followed by a residential weekend for the top performers, with a national team selected from that for an international olympiad competition, but these stages have been cancelled this year.

Year 8 pupil Maxwell Johnson’s colourful and carefully researched poster about plastics won first prize in a Royal Society of Chemistry regional competition.

Entrants in the under-13 competition run by the RSC’s Chilterns and Middlesex Division were challenged to prepare a poster under the heading of The Chemistry Around Us.

Maxwell’s multi-coloured entry spelled out his title using letters from the Periodic Table and then set out the advantages of plastics – a ‘wonder substance’ – while contrasting these with the problems this ‘material mess’ causes.

He received a certificate signed by RSC divisional committee member Vanessa Nottage, together with £25-worth of Amazon vouchers.

QE Chemistry teacher and Extra-curricular Enrichment Tutor Keith Bugler said: “Many congratulations to Maxwell on the research and care he put into his entry: I thought his poster was awesome!”

Among the positive attributes of plastics that Maxwell listed were its light weight, durability and versatility, Dr Bugler said. However, Maxwell pointed out the problems caused in the oceans when UV rays make plastics crumble into microplastics less than 5mm long. These endanger many sea animals, including birds and whales, and also enter the human food chain, causing health problems such as hormonal dysfunction and cancers.