14/02/2017 | Alen Bjelopetrović The second season of the contest called “Beauty of Crystal Faces“, organized and performed by the Croatian Association of Crystallographers, Faculty of Science in Zagreb and PLIVA HRVATSKA d.o.o. was held in Croatia, 14th October – 17th December 2016. This contest was intended for students of 7th and 8th grade of elementary school and all four grades of secondary school. The main goal of the contest was the preparation of single crystal as big as possible in one of three categories: 1) inorganic salt crystallization, 2) organic salt crystallization and 3) challenging category in which student first had to prepare the substance from which they will grow their single crystal. The students of the primary and secondary school competed separately and the duration of the experiment was limited to two months. One of the primary goals of the contest was to bring closer the world of science to students and interest them about crystals, crystal growth as well as to teach them a scientific approach to a real problem. Through the contest students had to adopt fundamental techniques and procedures used in the chemical laboratory such as using laboratory dishes and chemicals, filtration, decanting, handling acids and bases and writing high-quality laboratory notebook, which is an important component of every experimental work. The response to the content was unexpectedly good: there were more than 100 schools applied with more than 700 students divided into about 170 teams. This contest indicated that a lot of students already have a great interest in chemistry, science in general and experimental work.