Teamwork proves a winning formula

The team from Our Lady’s Catholic College were among students from nine schools and colleges across Lancashire and Cumbria who took part in Lancaster University’s annual Lower Sixth Analytical Competition.

The event was organised by the university’s chemistry department and involved two tasks and a poster competition.

The first task involved correctly identifying six unknown compounds using various processes and the second involved correctly identifying an unknown amino acid by carrying out a titration using the results to look at pKa and isoelectric points to pair up to an amino acid.

Our Lady’s winning team were Megan Hughes, James Waggett, Hazra Suleman and Niamh McBride.

Hazra said: “It was a really good experience and gave us a great insight into chemistry.

“We had no idea what to expect when we arrived of what the challenges would be but we just got stuck in and gave it our best”.

Niamh added: “It was such an interesting competition to be involved in and we were very proud to have won against tough opponents”

Megan said: “We were told that we performed consistently well across all of the challenges which we were really pleased about.”

James reckoned to have the secret to success: “I think part of the reason we won was team work - we worked really well together”.

Second place went to Lancaster Girls’ Grammar and in third place was Lancaster Royal Grammar.

Also taking part were students from Preston’s Cardinal Newman College, The Lakes School, Kirkbie Kendal School, Dallam School, Ripley St Thomas CE Academy and Morecambe Community High School.