North Sydney Boys High School tops 2021 Titration Competition
Written by Elaine Bergmann and Michelle Jeavons
Published 11 November 2021
Congratulations to North Sydney Boys High School who achieved a wonderful result in this year’s RACI Titration Competition, having two teams finish first and fifth.
“The boys put so much effort in,” explains science teacher Laura Sacchetta who coordinated the RACI Titration Competition at the school. “When I opened up my emails and saw that we had come first and fifth in the country, I cried. I couldn't believe it. I’m very proud of the boys’ achievement and I know they’re proud too. They were really excited when I told them.”
This achievement was even more notable with the school having to navigate the added complexity of COVID restrictions. “The fact that we got eight groups going to the state finals and then we had teams finish first and fifth in the nationals, it was just nice to see all their hard work and effort pay off,” says Laura. “We started training for the state competition at the beginning of term two which meant they would come in mornings and afternoons, where they just practiced and practiced. Our fantastic lab assistant also played a big part, providing lots of tips and hints which really helped.”
Having achieved such a wonderful result in 2021, Laura is already looking towards next year’s competition. “The first year I took over I managed to get one team into the national competition. This year I got two, so now I’m thinking why not aim to double each year,” she says with a smile.
“But seriously, I just want to thank all involved this year. I really appreciate that the states and territories actually postponed the deadline to enable as many schools as possible to have the opportunity to participate. I was really, really grateful about that. And just really excited about our school’s achievement.”
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To see the final 2021 Competition Results Leaderboard please click here.
2022 Titration Competition entries open in Term 1 2022.
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About the RACI Titration Competition
The competition began at The University of Queensland in 1980, expanding to a national competition in 1984. Dr Trevor Appleton coordinated the competition from its inception until his untimely death in 2013. Each state runs an internal competition to select teams of three students to progress to the finals. For the finals analysis, each student is supplied with a standard sample of potassium hydrogen phthalate of known quantity, and an unknown sample contaminated with a small of barium sulfate. Each student performs titrations to determine the amount of KHP in the unknown sample. The team score is based on the deviation of each team member’s result from the correct value. Further details on the competition can be found here.