Congratulations to Srikar P and Waseef R both of Year 13 for being awarded a Gold Crest award for their Ionic Liquids project titled: "Imidazolium Ionic Liquids: Alkyl Variation & Catalase activity"

The assesors were particulary impressed by the very high standard of the report which reflected what you would expect to see from a university level student. The level of detail with which the students designed and evaluated experimental approaches, analysed data, and solved problems iteratively, showed deep understanding of science behind their project.

Further assesor feedback stated rigorous planning at every level of the project from choosing the research question itself to synthesising the required chemicals and ensuring safety using risk assessments. Additionally, their conclusion was very strong with suggestions for the wider purpose of the project being insightful and practical.

I personally was also very impressed with the independence the students showed throughout the project over the last two years, where they have pretty much driven every aspect of the project, from researching the synthesis of the liquids, and other similar projects in the literature, to the way they altered their approaches, with minimal input from myself. 

I think the students have gained an awful lot of valuable experience from this project, and have learnt what real scientific research requires and entails, and that this is rarely available in other schools, and together with the other STEM offerings we have is part of what makes being a student at SGS a unique experience for the pupils.

We also couldn't have done this without the great support from our chemistry technicians Sofia and Ha every Wednesday afternoons, and also support from both Biology and Physics departments for borrowing chemicals/equipment often at short notice when the project has taken an interesting turn. 

Dr Vines