Elements+&+the+Periodic+Table

This alien periodic table is fun and helps the students use the periodic trends. (Bierkamp@East) This is a research project investigating an element. You eventually create a huge periodic table. (Bierkamp@East)
 * ]Elements & the Periodic Table**



E. Hall - Quick assignment that asks students to look up atomic numbers of common elements, then graph vs. atomic radii and ionization energy of each.

The attachment above is something I use to have students learn where/how electrons fill "rows" or "lanes". It is simplified, and does not go into the 1s2-2s2-2p6 stuff. My aim with this is to have students understand valence, at least for the first 20 elements of the Periodic Table. Students not only draw in the electrons, but also highlight the valence row. Then they use various colors of colored pencil or crayon to outline columns, to cluster atoms with the same number of valence electrons. (Byrnes at Hiatt) The attachment above is a continuation of the lesson that is above that. Instead of drawing/writing all electrons, they simplify their representations to show only the valence electrons--making Lewis Dot diagrams. As with the lesson above this one, students then use colors to outline columns, to cluster atoms with the same number of valence electrons. (Byrnes at Hiatt) The attachment above is kind of weird. I tell students that I have gotten ahold of Rocky Balboa's secret training schedule from an unnamed online source. However, in the download process, the sequence of the training days was scrambled. The challenge to the students is to rearrange the training days into a "training calendar" based on any patterns they can find. This lesson is a lead-in to how Dmitri Mendeleev arranged the elements he knew about into a Periodic Table. Even the fact that some of the "missing data" can be inferred is similar to what was done by Mendeleev. (Byrnes at Hiatt)

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