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The Periodic Table of Elements

We’ve started learning the basic elements of the Periodic Table of Elements and found some very cool resources.

First I found a photographed in 3-D Periodic Table of Elements on the front and detailed technical data on the back. Their online website allows you to click on one of the elements to get tons of stories, pictures and interesting facts about that element. You can get the poster in different sizes or even with real elements just like ones you see in some museums.

I purchased their place mat one because it could double as a poster. The nice thing about it was that it was very sturdy and immediately captured the attention of my kids.  This made it easier to introduce and keep the excitement of learning the elements going.

However, as we got more into it, a friend referred me to a pictures and words Periodic Table of Elements. This was a great addition. I found it to be simpler yet very effective. The nice thing was that I could just download it from the internet for FREE and purchase a poster for the class if I wanted to.  It thought it was a great way to provide students with their own copy to keep in their notebooks.

However, if your kids want more action or you just want to spice up your lessons, The Periodic Table of Videos is for you.  This is such a cool website, you will want to keep clicking on all the elements to learn more about them.  Basically, you’re given a plain Jane periodic table on their homepage, but for every element that you click on, you’re taken to a video explanation of the characteristics of the element followed by an experiment.

The explanations are given by what looks to be a “nutty” chemistry professor at The University of Nottingham, but whom you see is very professional and quickly gains your respect for the vast amount of knowledge he possesses.

As he goes on to explain about one of the 118 elements they’ve done so far, his undergraduate students will show you samples, big and small experiments and interviews with other scientist regarding the element. Overall, you walk away having a good feeling of what it would be like to be in the company of other professional chemists while having learned a few things about the elements.

I found it very useful and was glad to see that I wasn’t the only one who found the naming of the newest element found (112 Cp – Copernicium) named after the astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus kind of odd.