As a subject with full practicality and diverse employment, chemistry has always been a hot topic in American undergraduate applications. In 2016, The S.-T. Yau High School Science Award established the Chemistry Award for the first time, and in the same year established the interdisciplinary comprehensive award, which is now the famous Science Gold Award.

As the number of participants continues to increase, the difficulty of winning the Yau Science Awards Chemistry Award has increased year by year, and participants have begun to show deeper and broader academic thinking and research depth. Compared with other subjects, the subdivision of chemistry is more diversified.

As a team focusing on youth science and innovation competitions, Embark conduct research on the winning works of major international scientific research competitions every year, and bring you the latest award-winning trend interpretation lectures. Let's review the Yau Science Awards Chemistry Special!

Yau Science Awards Chemistry Track Detailed Explanation

The S.-T. Yau High School Science Award is a science innovation award for middle school students initiated and established by mathematics master Yau Shing-tung in 2008. It is based on "scientific research academic papers" and "professional academic defense" as the evaluation subjects, and participates in the form of submitting papers.

The research topics of the Yau Chemistry Award can be all chemistry-related, including both research results obtained through experiments and pure theoretical analysis.

There are two key points in the evaluation criteria of the Chemistry Award: the perspective of high school students and solving chemical problems. Therefore, the difficulty in selecting topics lies in how to find a slightly higher research topic without exceeding the cognitive scope of high school students.

For example, rocket fuel is a very cutting-edge topic, but it is too far away from the daily life of high school students. Such projects are unlikely to go far in the Yau Science Awards. How to draw materials from life but go beyond life is the key to achieving good results in the chemistry track.

Yau Science Awards Chemistry Award Analysis

We can classify the winning chemistry works of the 2022 Yau Science Awards finals by keywords, and the summary is as follows

Based on the review trends of Yau Science Awards in recent years, we have summarized the following rules & conclusions

The works shortlisted for the finals in 2018 are still very ordinary scientific research projects

The works shortlisted in 2018-19 began to appear close to the level of undergraduate essays

In 2020, the shortlisted works alone have reached the level of undergraduate course finals

The workload of all the works shortlisted for the finals in 2021 is very large, basically reaching the height of undergraduate graduation projects

In 2022, the types of winning works in the finals will be further diversified based on 2021

The academic contribution of the gold medal works of the Yau Science Awards every year is the most outstanding and can obviously open up a gap with other projects. The contributions of the silver medal, bronze medal and winning prize are relatively weak, but they are also enough to be called outstanding within the scope of middle school student scientific research.

The works that entered the finals this year are already very diverse, and they are getting closer and closer to the chemistry, biology and chemistry of cutting-edge chemistry. How to find the type that suits you in a diversified track, Teacher H believes that "big field, small research" is the most important.

Yau Science Awards Award-winning works intensive reading

What are the highlights of the winning works of Yau Science Awards Chemistry [6] that can stand out from thousands of works? Teacher H gave a detailed interpretation of the 2022 Chemistry Gold Award and Silver Award projects

• 2022 Chemistry Gold Award

Design and preparation of environmentally friendly disposable medical masks

The research project "Design and preparation of environmentally friendly disposable medical masks" that won the Chemistry Gold Award is of great social significance. During the global COVID-19 pandemic, people discarded a large number of non-degradable masks, causing serious environmental pollution to the world.

In order to solve this problem, it is crucial to develop environmentally friendly disposable masks. Inspired by spider silk predation and using natural polymers (gelatin and cellulose) as raw materials, this study designed and prepared a low-cost, high-performance, and fully biodegradable medical mask, providing a new way to solve the global pollution of mask pollution.

Students paid attention to the social hot spot - the new crown, and the masks we used most frequently during the pandemic. Starting from the perspective of biomaterials, a mask that can be environmentally friendly while ensuring the effectiveness of the mask is designed. Chemical biochemistry is the current research trend, and students are also practicing this process.

After looking at the gold award works, let's take a look at the silver award.

• 2022 Chemistry Silver Award

Visualizing Nanoplastics: New Fluorophore and its Applications in Plastic Particle Imaging

The research project that won the Silver Award in Chemistry, "Visualization of Nanoplastics: New Fluorophores and Their Applications in Plastic Particle Imaging", simply and quickly locates microplastics and explores their biological effects.

The background of this project comes from students' observations of life. As the environmental pollution caused by microplastics becomes more and more serious, how to scientifically and effectively prevent and control microplastics has become an urgent problem to be solved. The students' topic selection is very clever, and it takes into account both hot issues and social significance.

In terms of highlights, students synthesized fluorescent groups that can mark microplastics and interpreted the mechanism of their biological enrichment. Students sought guidance from college teachers and completed the experiment in the tutor's laboratory. The paper has clear logic and professional writing, and the silver award is well deserved.

2024Yau Science Awards Preparation Strategy

Yau Science Awards is a high-level scientific research competition for Chinese middle school students. What elements are required to participate in Yau Science Awards? Teacher H gives the following reference conditions：

• Have a strong interest in chemistry

Understand the composition of the chemistry discipline and have your own insights into a certain field or problem

• Have a solid foundation in chemistry

Learn or are learning AP Chemistry, etc.

Participated in USACO, etc.

• Have strong hands-on ability

Participated in IGEM and have experience in chemical experiments, etc.

• Have a certain self-study ability and self-motivation

Self-study advanced biology knowledge

Read literature and extract key points

The above is a review of the Yau Science Awards Chemistry Lecture. If you want to stand out in the Yau Science Awards Chemistry track where there are many experts, novel topics, sufficient subject knowledge, excellent teacher guidance, and persistent research spirit are indispensable!

At present, the Asian and mainland regions of Yau Science Awards have officially opened registration. Now is the golden preparation season for the 2024Yau Science Awards!

Determine the project as early as possible, arrange the progress reasonably, and leave enough time for polishing to stand out in the fierce competition!If you want to know more about high-quality scientific research competitions and want to customize the Yau Science Awards training program based on your child’s interests, then come and consult Embark!

Click the link to view other articles of the Yau Science Awards:

1. Explore the Yau Science Award Mathematics Track: Cultivate Curiosity and Innovate Research Methods
2. Comprehensive Analysis of the Yau Science Awards: Insights, Highlights, and Preparation Strategies
3. 2024 Yau Science Awards Preparation Guide - Biology

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