Background:
Websites provide invaluable information for teachers, which can inform instruction. The Internet can provide useful activities for students, resources for teachers and creative twists on content. The periodicity of the periodic table is a topic that is often poorly presented in textbooks. This topic consists of the arrangement of elements on the periodic table and the trends that exist in exhibited properties. Periodic trends can be flat and difficult for students to understand when presented in one way. The websites below provide multiple ways to present material, including web-based activities for students to acquire concepts, resources for both students and teachers to reinforce concepts, research-based POGILS, and creative twists on the concepts. This list of sites does not represent an exhaustive list, but rather a comprehensive list of truly useful websites that teachers can immediately implement in their classrooms.
WebQuests and Web-Based Activities:
The sites listed in the first category are considered WebQuests or are web-based activities. A web quest is an inquiry-oriented activity in which students draw information from the Internet. Web quests support students so that they use their time thinking at higher levels of analysis, synthesis and evaluation. In 1995 Bernie Dodge from San Diego State University developed the web quest model outlined in “Some Thoughts About WebQuests”. Other web-based activities are listed that also enable students to discover information, but may not necessarily be classified as WebQuests.
Lynchburg City Schools, WebQuest: Periodic Table Trends
www.hse.k12.in.us/staff/kmccord/Files/periodic%20trends%20web%20quest.doc
http://www.lynchburg.net/hhs/chemistry/trends/
(online)
This website has an online WebQuest for students. The WebQuest is well organized so that after each topic there is a link to a webpage where the information can be found. The WebQuest is designed for high school chemistry students and covers topics such as atomic radius, ionization energy and electronegativity. Students can work concurrently on a coordinated Word Document on the computer or with paper and pen. By the end of the WebQuest students will be able to identify the major trends on the periodic table using various techniques – graphs, tables, and element-by-element data.
This online WebQuest begins with a general introduction to the periodic table which links to www.Chem4Kids.com where students discover the categories of elements. After students gain a general understanding of periodic table basics they can move to the second activity on periodic trends. This WebQuest is also well organized so that the websites that students need are provided along with the questions. For each trend – atomic radius, first ionization energy, and electronegativity – both a graph and a shaded periodic table are provided for students to visualize the trends. At the end, there is a reflective piece where students evaluate the type of data that is most useful for each exercise. In this way the activity moves up Bloom’s taxonomy to higher-level thinking.
Susquehanna University, WebQuest: The Periodic Table: http://www.susqu.edu/students/h/hillyard/web%20quest.htm
The above website enables students to understand the properties and trends of the groups that exist on the periodic table through a WebQuest. The WebQuest provides the opportunity for students to go on a virtual adventure as “Covalent Bond” to seek out physical and behavioral characteristics of the elements and how they are related to each other. By the end, students are to place the elements in appropriate categories based on their findings. Students are directed to links of helpful websites where students can get the information to answer the questions.
Dartmouth College, Periodic Table Applet
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~chemlab/info/resources/p_table/Periodic.html
This webpage presents a periodic table that illustrates a range of trends including melting point, ionization energy, electron affinity, density, electronegativity, and atomic radius. In order to visualize the trends there is a pull down menu that shows, with color shading, the trend exhibited in the chosen property. The applet also includes periodic puzzles, where elements of a certain group are pulled off the periodic table and scrambled giving students practice placing them appropriately back on the table.
NASA, Genesis Science Module Activity: Modeling the Periodic Table
http://genesismission.jpl.nasa.gov/educate/scimodule/cosmic/ptable.html
http://genesismission.jpl.nasa.gov/educate/scimodule/cosmic/teaching_tools.pdf
http://genesismission.jpl.nasa.gov/educate/scimodule/cosmic/InterSimTG.pdf
This interactive website is designed as an exercise in problem solving where the teacher’s role is Socratic. Students are able to act as investigative scientists (a.k.a. Mendeleev) and use the physical and chemical properties of the elements to construct a periodic table. The activity optimizes the use of technology through its hands on approach. The first PDF above includes documents that give students direction before they begin the problem solving process. The second document is a teacher’s guide, which includes background information, the connection to standards, materials, a detailed procedure to use to take students through the activity as well as additional resources. The website includes many more science modules on the periodic table which can be appropriate for grades 5-9 and grades 8-12. By choosing the appropriate grade level you can access modules, teacher’s guides, investment tools and interactive simulations. What’s more, the activity connects to real life research that NASA scientists are currently undertaking on their quest for elemental isotopic abundance to provide clues to the origin of the solar system.
Cape Canaveral High School, Mr. Nettesheim's Classes,
Chemistry: Trends of the Periodic Table
http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Lab/4097/chem/chap4/periodictrends.html
This online document would be a great study guide or reinforcement sheet. The document could be given out as a study sheet or with blanks as a cloze passage in science to reinforce content already learned about the periodic table. The document includes very clear explanations about the trends and why they exist in the way they do. Trends explored include atomic radius, electronegativity, ionization energy, reactivity, ionic radius and melting point.
University of Virginia Physics Department, The Universal Periodic Table: A Physical Science Activity
http://galileo.phys.virginia.edu/outreach/8thgradesol/PeriodicTable.htm
This website provides background information on the periodic table, a teacher demonstration and a student activity for reinforcement. The teacher demonstration is not directly related to periodic trends, but is related to the reactivity of elements and their locations on the periodic table. A teacher may be able to use the demonstration, or parts of it, to invest students in the topic. After the demonstration, the website suggests proceeding with a lesson on the periodic table and its trends. Finally, there is a student activity used for reinforcement. The activity is higher level because the students synthesize information in order to create their own periodic table using “elements” from another planet.
POGIL stands for Process Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning and was developed by Professor Rick Moog of Franklin and Marshall College. This approach to learning empowers small groups of students to arrive at a concept using a body of information and a set of questions. The inquiry process is guided by the questions designed by the instructor. POGIL.org provides background information on this research-based teaching technique, based on the acquisition of content and key processing skills simultaneously.
Periodic Trends
http://www.pogil.org/downloads/Foundations/Periodic_Trends.pdf
The objective of this POGIL is for students to develop relationships between position of elements on the Periodic Table and electron configurations with atomic radius, ionization energy, and electron affinity. Students are introduced first to new concepts and vocabulary as they paraphrase definitions. The POGIL is scaffolded so that the preliminary activity dealing with electron configurations acts a review, confidence-builder and lead in to the analysis questions. The POGIL provides a model of inter-particle forces and graphs that model the variation of atomic properties with atomic number. This activity allows students to really gain a deeper understanding of the trends and their connection to inter-particle forces. The activity is long with over 20 questions with multiple parts. It can be modified to meet students where they are and can be completed over more than one class day if necessary.
Periodicity of Elements
http://www.pogil.org/downloads/HS/Periodicity_of_Elements_2.pdf
This activity begins with an analogy comparing the octave of musical notes to repeating eight step series of elements on the Periodic Table. The objective of this activity is for students to be able to associate groups on the periodic table with a number of valence electrons and periods with a number of principal energy levels. Before beginning this POGIL students must have knowledge about electron configuration and nuclear charge. Students write electron configurations and discover trends in valence electrons of each group and trends of the number of electron shells in each period. The activity is short and can be completed in one class period.
As a teacher it often seems as if all resources have been exhausted and your students still don’t understand. This is where the extras come in. The websites included in this section have extra activities to reinforce concepts in ways that satisfy the multiple intelligences of our students.
Sing Smart Creative Musical Curriculum, Effective Chemistry Lesson Plans using Chemistry Songs, Dance, Drama and other Multiple Intelligence Techniques
http://www.sing-smart.com/LyricsDetails.asp?SongCategoryID=6
This webpage is great for the creative chemist in all of us. The website include links to a number of chemistry songs listed by topic and genre (i.e. rap, folk, rock, swing, etc). The songs are part of a program called “Holy Mol-ee!” that must be purchased to access the full song. However, the lyrics are provided and the song clips provide a jumping off point so you can likely implement your choice tunes in the classroom.
About.com, Periodic Table: Elements in Fireworks
http://chemistry.about.com/library/weekly/blfireworks.htm
This website gives information
about the elements most commonly used in fireworks. Though it is not directly about trends, it can reinforce the
concepts of flame tests and spectroscopy through a real life application. Students may also analyze the colorants and
determine if there are any trends in the placement on the periodic table and
the particular color exhibited.
Wikipedia:
The Free Encyclopedia, Glass: Colours
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass
This
website analyzes how metals and metal oxides can be used to color glass. This is a good time to discuss properties of
metals through a discussion of why metals are chosen as glass colorants. Students can see metals as functioning in
their everyday lives. Students can also
click on the links to particular metals or metal oxides to learn more about the
element or compound including its molecular weight, atomic number, formula,
notable characteristics and applications (ex: to learn more about sulfur,
Wikipedia will direct students to this site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sulfur)
Conclusions:
Websites can be truly valuable tools for aiding teachers in delivering content. Sifting through the websites is a process that can be time consuming and at times fruitless. An analysis such as this provides a resource for teachers looking to teach a particular topic, in this case periodic trends. This analysis serves to list websites that can be used by teachers to deliver content to their students in multiple ways. For a topic that is tedious to learn, initial instruction or reinforcement through websites can reach students in a way that textbooks and lectures may not be successful at doing. Websites can provide web-based activities, resources for reinforcement, instructional tools, like POGILs, and extra information, all of which serve to invigorate the content for better student acquisition.