'Laboratory' research

I have deliberately labelled this ‘laboratory research’ rather than ‘practical work’. Since all Extended Essays are assessed using the same criteria and many IB subjects do not involve practical work there is no actual requirement for you to do your own experiment work as part of your Extended Essay. Each normal year probably about 10-15 % of all Chemistry Extended Essays involve no ‘hands on’ practical work by the student and this percentage has increased considerably during the pandemic. There are two big caveats to this though. Generally students seem to score less well if they do not do their own experimental work. This is because it is probably harder to show originality and personal input. It is quite difficult, but not impossible, to put an original slant on data generated by others. The second is that chemistry is an experimental science and very much lends itself to individual investigations. 

Laboratory resources can essentially be sub-divided into two types. Some people think that meaningful research can only be carried out if you have the expensive equipment and resources that are only available in a properly equipped research laboratory. This means that each year some students do all their practical work in a university or industrial research laboratory. Often they seem to completely miss the point as to what an Extended Essay is about. It is not uncommon to find that a student has won an award and works during their summer holiday alongside a graduate student at university. I am sure this is very instructive and that if you do it you will learn a lot of useful chemistry but it does not make for a good Extended Essay. You may have had little input into the topic of research – often it is the favourite area of the graduate student or professor in the laboratory – and it is also clear that many students do not fully understand the underlying chemistry as it is too complex at IB level. You may also not be able to exert much control over the expensive equipment used with almost no possibility of adapting it. Additionally you may have to rely mainly on technicians to do much of the actual practical work as the equipment is too sophisticated to allow you to handle it personally. It is also difficult for your school supervisor to know exactly what input you have had and how much help or otherwise has come from others. There are some good Extended Essays produced using university laboratories but these are where the student has clearly developed the idea themselves and used an instrument at the university to acquire data they could not easily obtain in a school. For example, one student prepared several alkenes with different groups around the double bond. Her aim was to determine how the different groups affected the precise value of the infrared absorption due to the double bond. As the school did not have its own infrared spectrometer the student got the local university to run the spectra for her. This, to me, is a sensible use of a good research laboratory.

The best Extended Essays come from students generating their own data in a school laboratory. The term 'school laboratory' here is used in the widest sense and includes field work etc. This is because you have total control over your own experimental method. You can design and adapt equipment and alter the chemicals used to fit in with the direction of your own research. Even so, you must not do it in a vacuum. Many students talk about their experimental method in the Extended Essay but they do not state where the basic idea came from and how they have modified or adapted it. Often they also do not discuss other methods they could have used or give the reasons why they opted for a particular method and discarded others. If you can devise two different techniques to arrive at a solution to your Research Question then that can be a powerful help when you develop your argument as you can include a comparison of the two methods by discussing their strengths and weaknesses. Be prepared to ask your teacher or supervisor to obtain any chemicals that your school does not normally possess. You may also need to agree with your supervisor for him or her or another member of staff to be physically present in the laboratory for Health and Safety reasons while you are doing practical work, i.e. supervising your practical work but not formally supervising your EE at the same time. Many teachers allow their EE students to get on with their practical work at the same time as they are formally teaching another class or during their lunch hour while they get on with preparation or marking etc.