LAB SKILLS CONTEST 2003
Results of 8th Annual Laboratory Skills Contest for High School Chemistry Students
As part of National Chemistry Week, local high-school students turned out in record numbers to participate in the eighth annual chemistry lab skills contest held at the Abbotsford campus of the University College of the Fraser Valley on Saturday, October 18. With the recent opening of a third chemistry laboratory at UCFV, and the successful application for a grant from the PromoScience program administered by the National Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, the maximum number of participants was increased this year.
Eleven high schools from the UCFV catchment area responded to this increase by entering a total of seventeen four-person teams. Participating schools were Abbotsford Senior Secondary, Abbotsford Christian, Chilliwack Senior Secondary, Rick Hansen Secondary, Heritage Park Secondary, the Mennonite Educational Institute, Mission Secondary, W.J. Mouat Secondary, D.W. Poppy Secondary, Sardis Senior Secondary, and Yale Secondary.
Each team completed seven experiments consisting of two quantitative determinations and five syntheses. The quantitative experiments involved the determining the amount of calcium in a dietary supplement by two different methods, the first method making use of an ion-exchange column followed by a titration and the second method being a gravimetric determination involving the precipitation of calcium as the hydrated oxalate.
The syntheses involved the preparation of some colourful complexes of cobalt, nickel, and chromium. The overall winner was one of two teams from W.J. Mouat Secondary School consisting of Robert McDougall, Bradley Roger, Andrew Field and Ezekiel Echon. Yale Secondary School, the winner for the last four years, placed second with the team of Brian Wong, Katie Newcombe, Rika Morrow, and Rebecca Graham. The team of Emily Glenn, Kuljit Dhaliwal, Ryan Dyck, and Jared Klassen, representing the Mennonite Educational Institute, was third. Members of the first-placed team will each receive $100, while members of the second- and third-placed teams will each receive $50 and $25, respectively. All participants received complimentary snacks, lunch, and a custom-designed t-shirt. A post-contest chemistry magic show was presented by UCFV staff and students.
As in previous years, the event was co-ordinated by Dr. Arthur Last and would not have been possible without the enthusiastic support of a dedicated team of chemists and chemistry students, all of whom performed a variety of tasks in addition to those detailed below.
CHEMISTRY MAGIC SHOW
- Aileen Ablog and Shawn Millar, with help from student volunteers.
- Set-up, clean up, organizing chemicals and apparatus, etc:
- Aileen Ablog, Shawna Dyck, Shawn Millar, Jane Webb, and Gordon von Hollen, with help from student volunteers.
Contest supervisors:
Shawna Dyck, Arthur Last, and Gordon von Hollen, with help from student volunteers.
The student volunteers, who between them contributed over 55 person-hours of their time, were:
Christine Bergen, Lindsay Boon, Nick Boon, Tristan Chappell, Lisa Ego, Carly Fredette, Jason Harvey, Miranda Kelly, Shawn McIssac, Alexandra Nagy, Lori Thiele, Eric Yang, and Zhijun Zhao.
PREVIOUS WINNERS IN THE COMPETITION WERE
- Sardis Secondary School (1996)
- Abbotsford Senior Secondary School (1997)
- Heritage Park Secondary School (1998)
- Yale Secondary School (1999)
- Yale Secondary School (2000)
- Yale Secondary School (2001)
- Yale Secondary School (2002)
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