Chemistry camps: Year 10 (x-posted)

[Saracen]

Salters organises chemistry camps for young people in Year Ten. These will be held at 19 different universities in June, July and August 2012.

"Students spend three days and two nights at the Host University, staying in the University Halls of Residence, and using the laboratories. They carry out new, exciting experiments, and have the chance to delve into areas of chemistry that are perhaps not covered at school. Further background information is presented through entertaining lectures and (often noisy!) demonstrations. In the evenings, practical work in the labs is put on the back burner, and students enjoy a variety of social activities like a fun quiz or tenpin bowling."

The course fee is £90 plus you pay your own travel expenses.

If your son or daughter is interested in participating, you might like to contact Salters now to find out how to put a home educated young person forward for it. Entries are processed in the order in which they are received, and forms will be available to download from Monday 28 November. www.salters.co.uk/camps/index.htm I downloaded a nomination form last year, so feel free to email me if you want a sneak peek to see what sort of information, personal statement etc may be wanted on this year's form. Then you can take your time working on it but still be quick off the mark!

Has anybody been on one of these camps?

My youngest would utterly love this but is only Year 8. Do they do it each year?

DS went in June

Yes, musicposy, they've been holding the camps since 1998 and with luck will still be doing it when our children are old enough! My eldest is only in Y7 at the moment but I like to make a note of all this stuff early because you don't always hear about it at the moment when they are eligible! Might be a good idea to join their mailing list so you'll get reminded about it.

Oo, tabulahrasa, tell all! (If you don't mind!) Did your son enjoy it? I am particularly curious to know whether much prior knowledge is assumed. At the moment my dd likes to have a go at lots of different things but hasn't focused on anything much. Except art. So I think she'd like it IF it's accessible, but she may be upset if she goes and finds everyone else has a good grounding in chemistry and it's all a bit over her head. Could you ask your ds about that for me?

Oh musicposy, did you see that Salters also organises one-day events in universities for groups of four children in Years 7 and 8? Festival of Chemistry, it's called. It is free and you just pay travel expenses to the university.

I was in touch with them recently to find out how to enter HE children. You'll need to get together a group of four children; they don't accept individual entries. But that shouldn't be too hard: I see no reason why you couldn't draw from a wide geographical area if necessary, so long as all four are willing to travel to the same university.

Applications can be made online from 28 November and they say places fill up very quickly. I'm getting all our ducks in a row in advance so I can be ready. I've found three other children to join my daughter.

www.salters.co.uk/festivals/news.html

Um I can ask him, but his school only gave the information to those doing chemistry and he has AS so he's very literal...lol

He went to a general chemistry one rather than one of the specialized ones as I made him pick by location - but it was all practical stuff, they made paracetamol and glowsticks, so I can't see why you'd need a good grounding in chemistry so much as be able to follow instructions, lol.

However, the forms i'm sure asked about chemistry and in fact we were even sent ones out after he'd applied about his planned career path