Chemistry Challenge 2021 results announced

The results of the RSC Belgium Chemistry Challenge 2021 were announced at our webinar event with John O'Donoghue on 'Chemistry in the Movies' on the evening of 23 September 2021. As for last year, due to COVID19 rules, this year's Chemistry Challenge was also a virtual event that was undertaken remotely by students at their schools.

For the 2021 Challenge, we received entries from the majority of our group of international and European schools in the Brussels area and beyond and, as ever, the Challenge was designed to test the student's chemical knowledge and initiative.

The RSC Belgium Chemical Challenge has three sections:

• A chemistry multiple choice paper (Section A)
• A structured questions on chemistry (Section B), and
• A 'Thinking Matters' paper that is not chemistry based (Section C)

The top results were as follows:

Section A - Multiple choice

First prize for this section was shared by Marcus Waterson from the European School in Mol (ESMol) and Ito Yurie from the British School of Brussels in Tervuren (BSB) who each receive a €50 award. 

There were three winners of €25 second prizes: Matilde Malagodi of St John’s International School in Waterloo (St John's), and Julie Petermans and Hannah Haris of BSB.

Third prizes of €10 went to Vladislav Morozov and Mels Leurs of BSB and Maria Shopova from European School Brussels IV in Laeken (EEB4).

Section B - Structured questions

In this section the first prize of €50 was awarded to Vladislav Morozov of BSB with Marcus Waterson of ESMol and Ito Yurie of BSB picking up second prizes worth €25. A third prize of €10 was awarded to Sungbin Yun from BSB.

Section C - Thinking Matters

For this section the top prize of €50 went to Lilia Kautz of EEB4, with BSB's Rosanne Roberts picking up a second prize of €25, and three third places worth €10 awarded to Antoni Tokaj of St. George’s International School in Luxembourg (St George's), Maria Shopova from EEB4 and Ito Yurie of BSB.

The Keith Price Prize

With excellent performances in both chemistry sections, this year's Keith Price Prize was jointly claimed by Marcus Waterson of ESMol (pictured below) and Ito Yurie of BSB (pictured above), who both received an additional €100. 

Well done to everyone who took part in this year's Chemistry Challenge! Every student that entered the competition receives a certificate of participation. And, of course, we will be running the Challenge again in 2022 and look forward to further widening participation!