Page 13 - PERIODIC Magazine Issue 6

For Director of Teaching Laboratories Dr Malcolm Stewart, delights of chemistry to a wider audience and encourage the
October 2018 sees the fruition of a dream that has been a brightest and best school students from all backgrounds to
long time in the making. Back in 2006 he presented a paper study chemistry.
at a chemical education conference at Keele University At the University open days in June, potential
in which he put forward a vision of breaking down the undergraduates were treated to a tour of the impressive
traditional barriers between inorganic, organic, and physical new facilities and responded with much excitement and
and theoretical chemistry in practical teaching – not easily enthusiasm. We hope that forthcoming generations of
realised when practical chemistry is taught in three different Oxford chemists will continue to have smiles on their faces as
labs in separate buildings. Since the new labs received the wide as those of the students who visited on the open days,
go-ahead, a team of developers has been working on new and we are delighted to be able to offer one of the most
experiments that better fit the ethos of an integrated course. innovative and modern practical courses in the UK.
The process has been overseen by the Chemistry Practical
Co-ordination Committee, chaired firstly by Prof. Jeremy
Robertson, then Prof. Luet Wong and latterly by Prof. Claire
Vallance.

New experiments have been tested by undergraduate
interns over the past two years and the course for the first
year launches in Michaelmas Term, with the second and
third year courses following soon afterwards. The emphasis
of the new course is on synthesis and measurement (in its
widest possible sense) combined in a single experiment.
The style of the new experiments can be characterised
by the development of a current inorganic experiment
on interhalogens. Students will still have to make various
interhalogen compounds and analyse them for purity,
but now they will also investigate the reaction of these
compounds with alkenes to get information about the
regioselectivity of the addition, which can be monitored by
NMR spectroscopy. Students will be encouraged to work in
groups to collect data and solve problems rather than simply
following recipes.
The team of staff who will run the courses has been
restructured. Dr Andrew Worrall has been appointed as
Deputy Director of Teaching Laboratories, along with four
new Departmental Lecturers in Practical Teaching. Susan
Smith, our new Schools Liaison and Outreach Officer will
help make best use of the improved facilities to introduce the

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Periodic
The Magazine of the Department of Chemistry