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Inspire your students with our school outreach activities

We offer fun, hands-on educational chemistry activities. Learn how your school science students can benefit from our outreach programme.

Join us at our state-of-the-art research laboratories

We run workshops in our laboratories aimed at secondary school students. They will benefit from practical sessions that teach scientific principles and methods.

The activities we offer are a great way to put the science you teach into context. Our workshops cover subjects relevant to the science curriculum.

Your students will enjoy hands-on exercises in groups using our laboratories and equipment.

Spectroscopy workshops

Our spectroscopy workshops are offered free of charge and are suitable for students in years 12 and 13. We can accommodate up to 30 students in one session.

Students are split into small groups and taken on a tour of the three areas of spectroscopy relevant to the post-16 curriculum. They visit the instruments and are given 20-minute talks by experienced staff in the fields of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), mass spectrometry and infrared (IR) spectrometry.

Groups have the opportunity to run their own samples of compounds they have prepared in school. The principles of spectroscopy are reinforced by a 30-minute problem-solving workshop following the tours where students deduce the structure of some unknown compounds using spectroscopic data.

Workshops tend to start between 1.00pm and 1.30pm, and usually last about 2 hours.

2025/2026 academic year dates

  • Wednesday 8th October 2025 - 1 place available
  • Wednesday 22nd October 2025 - 8 places available
  • Wednesday 12th November 2025 - 6 places available
  • Wednesday 26th November 2025 - fully booked
  • Wednesday 10th December 2025 - 30 places available
  • Wednesday 11th February 2026 - 30 places available
  • Wednesday 11th March 2026 - 30 places available
  • Wednesday 22nd April 2026 - fully booked
  • Wednesday 6th May 2026 - 30 places available
  • Wednesday 20th May 2026 - 30 places available
  • Wednesday 10th June 2026 - fully booked
  • Wednesday 24th June 2026 - 30 places available

Dates will be shown for the 2026/2027 academic year shortly after Easter 2026.

Synthesis/Separation workshops

Our Synthesis workshops and Separation workshops are suitable for years 12 and 13. We can accommodate up to 30 students in one session.

Students complete a practical synthesis or separation using the university laboratories and equipment. Students then analyse their separated/synthesised compounds using techniques such as thin layer chromatography (TLC), melting point analysis and infrared (IR) spectroscopy, to deduce what they have made and check purity.

This gives them the opportunity to experience new techniques which may not be available to them at school and allows them to perceive subjects from the post-16 syllabus in context.

Workshops start at 1.00pm, and usually last about 2.5 - 3 hours.

2024/2025 academic year dates

  • Thursday 26th June 2025 - 7 places available (aspirin synthesis workshop)

2025/2026 academic year dates

  • Tuesday 16th September 2025 - fully booked
  • Thursday 18th September 2025 - fully booked
  • Thursday 15th January 2026 - 4 places available (separation workshop)
  • Thursday 22nd January 2026 - 14 places available (separation workshop)
  • Thursday 29th January 2026 - fully booked
  • Tuesday 2nd June 2026 - 12 places available (separation workshop)
  • Tuesday 9th June 2026 - fully booked
  • Thursday 18th June 2026 - fully booked
  • Thursday 25th June 2026 - 10 places available (aspirin synthesis workshop)

Dates will be shown for the 2026/2027 academic year shortly after Easter 2026.

Bring spectroscopy into the classroom

Our student ambassadors offer hands-on spectroscopy activities and talk about what it is like to study chemistry at university.

This activity is suitable for students from Year 10 and above.

The department was part of the Royal Society of Chemistry's Spectroscopy in a Suitcase programme. While the actual programme was discontinued in 2020, the department still proactively offers this activity as an outbound workshop, which provides portable nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and infrared (IR) spectroscopy instruments to be taken into local schools.

Trained postgraduate ambassadors can visit the school to deliver activities in the Bristol or Bath areas, or the equipment can be loaned to schools for trained teachers to use in their lessons. Students get hands-on experience of using the equipment in their own classrooms.

Host an undergraduate student for a term

Our students can do a project in the third year of their degree where they work with teachers in local schools.

From October to May they can provide teaching and practical assistance whilst developing a special project in the school.

Invite our student or staff ambassadors to your school

Staff or postgraduate students can visit schools in the Bath and Bristol areas to speak to pupils.

This activity is suitable for students in Year 7 and above.

Staff or postgraduate students can visit your school to give a talk about studying chemistry at university, careers in chemistry or aspects of cutting edge research.

Enquiries

For more information, please contact the Chemistry Coordinators Office