Congratulations to AP Chemistry students who placed 1st, 2nd and 4th in the Battle of the Burets! The competition was hosted by the St. Louis Section of the American Chemical Society and held at Southern Illinois University – Edwardsville on Monday, February 24.
Bonnie Sneider ’21 and Poulomi Rudrappa ’21 finished in 1st place. Mia Duchars ’20 and Erin Halligan ’20 placed 2nd. Rishi Bhattacharya ’21 and Ehsaan Tibrewala ’21 placed 4th. This is an exceptional performance by our Upper School scientists! There were 20 teams in total from the St. Louis Metro Area including local public and private schools such as Clayton, Parkway West and Villa Duchesne.
In addition to winning 1st, Sneider and Rudrappa’s accuracy broke a record for being the most accurate in over four years of this competition. One of the college-level professors judging the event commented that our students performed as well as, or better, many of his chemistry students.
Faculty sponsors Kelly Anderson and Justin Little, both of the Upper School Science Department, worked with students on their titration craft every Thursday morning for the past month. Anderson said, “We are so very proud of their success and overall enjoyment in the competition.”
More information on the competition from the Battle of the Burets website:
“Battle of the Burets is a peculiarly St. Louis event. Every February, teams (pairs) of high school chemistry students battle to be the best titrators in the region, by determining the normality of an unknown acid solution. All teams compete in preliminary heats, and the top prelim teams face off once more in the final round. In each round, teams have five minutes to arrive at their answer using any information they accumulate within that time period. They may perform a single titration. Or they might perform two or three titrations and either average the results or pick the result that feels right to them.”