The Periodic Table of the Elements

As you begin the school year in any science class that will later discuss the periodic table you can pass out a blank copy of the periodic table. Ask each student to fill in as many locations as they can without looking at the paper of their neighbors or talking. Tell them that this is not going to be graded, but you want to compare this one with one they will do for a grade after you cover the topic in class. Tell them to put the correct symbol in the appropriate location and any other information they can remember that is normaly displayed in the location with the symbol. Tell them you want them to do as well as they can, but don't wildly guess. Give them only about 6 1/2 minutes. (Note: A great teacher I knew told me one time that we should get out of the habit of giving students typical time limits like, five minutes, ten minutes etc. because it tends to get them just a bit off balance and away from common time limits.) They will need to put their names on the chart they complete and the date.

You will have to review them and mark the ones that are totally correct. You most likely will have a long time before you will give them another chance at doing this, but score them as quickly as possible. As you cover the elements in the periodic table you can have them put a blank table in their notebook and write on their copy as you discuss different elements. You can give them little hints and tricks at remembering various parts of the periodic table. You can do in class experiments and demonstrations about certain elements as you teach the periodic table constantly referring back to their notebook chart which will get more and more complete through the course.

Knowing where some key elements are located will help them learn a good portion of the chart. It is common for students to be required to learn at least the first three rows and some additional specific elements. Students can select a specific element that they want to research and can produce a report about that particular element.

The important point is that after you have covered the elements you want them to learn and the major features of the periodic chart you think will be important you can then retest them on the blank chart. If you have been successful they should be able to fill in a much greater portion of the chart than they did on their first attempt and they should be able to tell you more about some of the elements and why the chart is constructed in this manner.

If there are intelligent bieings on another planet in some solar system in the universe, they will have some common methods of understanding. One is through the universal nature of mathematics and another is through the universal characteristics of matter. If intelligent life is found that has achieved a level of intelligence that they have studied the elements scattered throughout the universe, then they will be studying some of the same things your students are learning about in their classroom. Beings on other planets of course may have different names for the elements, but the number of electrons, protons, and neutrons will remain universal. This means that if we could send a message through space that somehow described the nucleus of an atom with one electron in orbit, they would know we were describing what we call Hydrogen and it looks like Hydrogen is the most common element in the entire universe.

When students, teachers, and parents have a way to compare what knowledge we start out with and what we end up with after a period of study we all gain something. Students gain a bit of pride and accomplishment that they may not experience in other assignments. There are many articles on associated content by other authors about the periodic table and there are excellent internet locations that discuss the elements and the chart. In this article my main focus is to get students to fill out as much as they can from memory at the start and end of the year. Once the second one is collected and graded you can match it with the first one and then pass both back to each student. Hopefully all have learned and showed it on the second attempt.