Sixty-four secondary school students got the opportunity to use their science skills to solve a murder and build a chemical timer as part of the 2009 Salters’ Festival of Chemistry.
The students, from 16 schools in Dublin, Monaghan, Down and Wicklow, spent the day in Trinity College Dublin’s chemistry laboratories.
In a recreation of the evidence of a murder, they used flame tests and test-tube reactions to match salts present on a victim’s clothing with those of five suspects.
The day also included a competition to build a chemical timer set for one minute. The students then watched colourful and noisy chemical demonstrations in a lecture entitled ‘Chemical Magic’.
This event was one of 55 Salters’ Festivals of Chemistry taking place at third-level colleges throughout Ireland and the UK between March and June 2009. TCD has hosted the festival for the past 15 years.
Learn more
Watch a video of the Science Week Lecture about the science of forensics by Dr Sheila Willis, Director of the Forensic Science Laboratory
