FOUR pupils from a St Albans secondary school were in their element after winning a top prize at a chemistry festival.

Year 7 pupils Cordell Bennett-Fontaine, Elizabeth Power, Dana Connell and Rifat Chowdhur from Nicholas Breakspear School in Colney Heath Lane won the university challenge at the Salters Festival of Cambridge, held at the University of Bedfordshire last month.

Head of Science Dr Pete Sutton said: “Their teamwork was fantastic. All the other teams were amazed by their excellence.”

The students were very modest about their achievements. Dana said: “I enjoyed going, we had two challenges: a murder mystery where there were lots of suspects and clues involving salts and metals.

“In the second challenge we had to get a mixture of citric acid and bicarbonate from room temperature to reach 10 centigrade precisely; we won this quite easily as we worked well as a team. We got a certificate and prizes for this. I thought the day was really good. We learnt a lot from it too.”

Elizabeth added: “I was really pleased that we won because the competition from other schools, mainly Year 8 students, was really fierce.”

The Salters Festivals of Chemistry are an initiative which aims to promote the appreciation of chemistry and related sciences among the young. This organisation works in partnership with then Royal Society of Chemistry.