Science 

National Chemistry Competition

TWO teams of students represented St Norbert College in the Royal Australian Chemical Institute’s Australian National Titration Competition. The competition tested their practical skills and knowledge of acid and base chemistry.

Team One included Guntaas Ranu, Shilpa Ghimire, and Ann Sibbi, and Team Two included Anthony Abi Tanous, Armaan Josan, and Ayden Ratnasekera.

A titration is a fundamental aspect of quantitative chemical analysis and is used by scientists everyday in the food and wine industry as well as in the pharmaceutical industry. The students had two hours to complete two titrations. They had to make their solutions and use the analytical techniques and acid-base chemistry to calculate the concentration of an unknown sample. The students were working individually, in a new-to-them laboratory workspace to complete the task. 

The St Norbert teams competed against 70 teams from schools across WA and came in 26th and 47th. Congratulations to Armaan Josan, Guntaas Ranu and Ann Sibbi (pictured above), who received individual awards of High Distinction, Distinction and Credit for their titrations. 

Well done to all the students who participated - they are to be commended for their enthusiasm, maturity, and dedication towards the competition, they spent their evenings practicing and understanding the finer details of a titration.

Thank you to Mr D’Almeida for driving the students to Curtin University after school and to our lab technicians Ms Debbie Nugent and Ms Patricia Re for preparing the practice solutions and glassware for the competition.

(Miss K MaGee

Chemistry and Science Teacher)

Student Comments

Ann Sibbi

It was amazing visiting the campus of Curtin University and the facilitates they provided us with for the competition. We highly suggest the future Year 12s to participate in this competition as it’s an amazing experience to have before you end your high school career. We entered the competition with only one practice session, compared to other school groups who had been practising for almost the whole year. We would also like to thank Anthony Abi Tanous for washing all the glassware for us. My favourite part was getting the free pen.”