![]() To begin with it’s important just to increase familiarity. Introducing the periodic table is a way of saying, "This is our language, this is where we start, this is what we build things from." The first time I use the periodic table in teaching is often when I’m moving on from the idea that everything is made up of atoms or particles, to actually starting to name them. For a lot of children it’s a revelation when they suddenly understand that the table is used universally. They're called different things, but the symbols are the same. My husband is German and he’s a chemist, so he grew up with exactly the same element symbols. The Tom Lehrer song that lists all the elements really captures that variety.Īnd finally you’ve got the language side of it – the fact that these symbols are used all over the world. Then at the same time you’ve got the variety of the elements in it. The first is when you say that this table contains everything in the universe, as far as we know – that’s a phenomenal concept. There are a lot of 'wow' moments when you teach the periodic table. #1 periodic back in focus seriesIt started out as just a series of letters, and then some of those letters started to mean something, and only later did I start to appreciate the puzzle and the structure behind it.Īs a teacher, I have the opportunity to see children come in with only a vague awareness of its existence, and then slowly unwrap the meaning and the wonder of it. This mug often prompts questions from my children (Who’s the man with the beard? What’s Na?), so it’s something they’ve grown up with.įor me though, my earliest memory of the periodic table is probably seeing it on the back wall of the chemistry lab at my school in Hastings, with Mr Smith as my chemistry teacher. It took me a long time to work out what it was and what it was for. Niki Kaiser, chemistry teacher and research lead at Notre Dame High School in Norwich, speaks to us about the wonder of the periodic table, and her experiences of sharing that wonder with her students.Īs I’m writing this, I’m drinking coffee from my periodic table mug. ![]()
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