Chemistry is one of the many Leaving Certificate subjects on offer here at Ashton School. Because it is so fundamental to our world, chemistry plays a role in everyone’s lives and touches almost every aspect of our existence in some way. Chemistry is essential for meeting our basic needs of food, clothing, shelter, health, energy, clean air, water, and soil. By studying chemistry, students give themselves the option to go on and study science courses at third level. A chemistry degree opens many doors.  Chemistry-related jobs are all around us – the list of career possibilities is long, varied and very exciting. In Ireland about 17,000 people are employed in the chemical industry.

Here is 6th Year student Larry Olaseinde’s account of why he enjoys studying chemistry here at Ashton School:

“I chose and enjoy chemistry for a number of different reasons. Firstly, having a science subject as one of the seven Leaving Cert subjects is a very smart decision as it is an entry requirement for many different Universities. One of the things I enjoy doing in chemistry are the experiments. There are many different types of experiments such as titrations in which we use acids and bases and neutralise them together. Other cool experiments include the flame tests where we burn different salts and make multicoloured flames that look like fireworks in the class. Chemistry helps us to understand the world around us. It gives us the power to understand the properties of different materials and to transform materials into new and useful substances. Through chemistry, we can understand changes that we observe in the natural and physical world.”