‘…as paper is largely made from cellulose, and cellulose is formed from glucose (a sugar),’ thought sixth former Nicholas Johns, ‘glucose could be made from paper.’ He decided to investigate this for his A-level chemistry practical project. But there were snags: how to measure tiny amounts of glucose, for example. So, he talked it over with his chemistry teacher Neil Gordon, and Neil’s TSN partner scientist, Mark Roe (Institute of Food Research), who then took one of TSN’s loan kits to the school a good quality spectro-photometer which is able to make measurements with sufficient sensitivity.
Contact with a professional scientist, coupled with access to equipment normally unavailable to sixth form students, helped Nicholas produce a really first class project. Good enough, in fact, to be awarded full marks for the project by the examination board–the first time this has happened in the school.
Mark Roe:
‘Nick’s was a practical project to be carried out as part of the
A-level chemistry course. Nick did the initial research himself
and tried out a method he found in the literature. His digestion
method didn’t work well and his method for measuring glucose (density
measurements) wasn’t sensitive enough for his work. At this point,
I advised him on improving his digestion method and suggested
using an enzymatic colorimetric method for measuring glucose,
for which the TSN’s school-loan spectrophotometer was ideally suited. I have spent several years working on studies
of dietary fibre and glucose absorption, and the methods Nick
used were adaptations of methods I used during my carbohydrate
work. Nick put a lot of time and effort into the project and,
as his project was marked at 50 out of 50, I can only assume he
was very pleased with the outcome. Although I pointed him in the
right direction, the quality of the project was entirely down
to him.
I also helped with three other projects to varying degrees. Neil has now left Blyth Jex and so I am working with his replacement, John Bentley, and will once more be helping out with the A-level chemistry projects for this year’s group.’