Joshua Goraya Haydon School EPQ

Evaluation of Project                                   Joshua Goraya When I began my level 2 EPQ my I knew from the offset that I wanted to cover a scientific theme that covered my love of cycling, after much deliberation I decided on the tile “Doping in Cycling”. However, after talking with my mentor and the EPQ coordinator I came to the decision that the topic I was thinking of covering was simply too broad, I response to this I decided to narrow my topic down to something of more chemistry based title, “How can Doping Affect Performance of a Cyclist?”.  I felt that this was the perfect title for me and a subject that I could really get my teeth into and enjoy, whilst also developing my understanding on the subject. Most of my time was spent researching on different subtopics that all related to the question I was ...

Today I have added a new Title Page and contents page to make my work look more professional.

I have showed my work to my mentor the head of EPQ and the head of Science at my school. they were all very impressed with my work and thought that it needed only a little bit work dong to it. this issues were mostly grammatical as well as spellings, these issues were easily fixed.

Mid Project Evaluation For my project, I decided to explore the question “How can Doping affect the performance of a cyclist?”, this was due to both my love of cycling and of the sciences; biology and chemistry, I have been a keen cyclist for all my life and joined a cycling club aged seven and have progressed through the ranks ever since. I also thoroughly enjoy the subject’s chemistry, both of which I am considering studying at A level to expand my knowledge and understanding. Another reason for me choosing the question as I title is that over the years there has been countless offenses by cyclists for the use of drugs to improve performance, the most famous of all Lance Armstrong, he had won seven Tour de France’s only to have all his titles stripped away for the use of performance enhancing drugs. I have carried out a lot of research on the topics of: EPO, Blood bags, haemoglobin based oxygen carriers and perfluorocarbons, I have also begun research on anabolic steroids thou...

Over the past weeks I have completed a lot, almost all my research is finished and I have created a draft which is over 3200 words. I decided to show this draft to both my mentor and the schools head of EPQ both of which I received valuable advice on how to go forward and improve, also pointing out minor mistakes. From their reports I found that I needed to make major improvements to referencing and also making my work more clear to someone who may not be an expert in the field. After correcting these points I showed my work to my mum and allowed her to read it knowing that she is not a specialist and I could pick up points on how to better my work for someone who is not an expert. It has also been useful having my dad as he is a pharmacist and a cyclist who shares an interest in the topic, his skill set means he can inform me with information about the drugs they use. I was very glad to hear that all the people that I showed my work to said that it was very intriguing. I will continue...

I have recently finished researching the topic of cortiscosteroids, these drugs work as anti-inflammatiries and mean that you don't feel pain in the same way you would without them, unfortunately i have found no test that relates to corticosteroids due to the danger that they face towards the subject they are testing on.