Question: What do your school projects involve?

Mark Collins answered on 8 Nov 2015:

On behalf of the royal society of chemistry I organise two events for local schools in Northern Ireland, one in January called Top of the Bench, this is for 14-16 year olds and is a fun filled evening of activities at Queen’s University! And the other is the School’s analyst competition in March for 17-18 year old’s! They are both competitions with a winner declared who will go to a national final in April and June respectively as well as prizes in the event itself! The winning is only a tiny part of it, the real fun is that it brings people together from all over the province and you see things that are not in the classroom and involved in experiments that reflect industry more than the textbook. I have a big focus on the fun factor. It is a lot of work in organising these along side my own job but to see so many (hundreds) of children getting so much enjoyment and being enthused by Chemistry is worth every minute of effort!