The Department of Chemistry recently underlined its commitment to developing innovative educational approaches by sharing findings with the educational community at a national conference. Dr Dylan P Williams and Dr Katy McKenzie made significant contributions to the Variety in Chemistry Education 2011 conference, the biggest meeting of university chemistry educators in the UK. The department was also represented by RSC Teacher Fellow Dr Catherine Smith who attended the conference.

Dr Williams gave a talk on day one of the conference titled 'Chemistry Clips: Multimedia resources for supporting student learning in chemistry'. The talk gave details of a project to develop a series of short, focussed multimedia clips which is supported by the University of Leicester's academic practice unit. The innovative resources developed by this project will complement content delivered by traditional means.

Dr McKenzie ran a 2 hour long workshop on day two of the conference titled 'Enhancement of latent fingerprints on metal surfaces developing a context based laboratory'. The workshop was based on recent curriculum development work undertaken by Dr McKenzie which was funded by a development grant from the Higher Education Academy. The workshop showcased new extended investigation experiments on the theme of forensic science and gave participants the opportunity to prepare and enhance their own fingerprints on a number of metal substrates using a range of ionic liquid and aqueous systems. Resources, example data and extensions were shared with delegates including details on how to adapt the experiments for outreach activities.

The Royal Society of Chemistry and Higher Education Academy Physical Sciences Centre organised conference was held at the University of York and was attended by over 60 delegates.