Periodic Table
Walton, Malcolm Chicago Vocational High School
933-8100
Objectives:
To introduce to the students how the periodic chart came into existence
The importance of the chart in the study of chemistry
Show how active metals can replace hydrogen from water and acids
Apparatus Needed:
Periodic chart, strips of colored paper, test tubes, bunsen burner,
splints, various metals (Al, Ca, Na, K, Mg, Zn), matches, acid (HCl)
Recommend Strategy
Step 1. Introduce to the class how the periodic chart, early and
modern came into existence. Point out early chemist and their works,
such as Dobereiner (1829), Newland (1865), Mendeleev (1869) and Moseley
(1913).
Step 2. Pass out different strips of colored paper, each representing
an element that was discovered by an early chemist. Students will
group or classify the elements by the use of their senses.
Step 3. Students will place in order according to similarities i.e.
color, shiny, dull, odor to form a family of elements
Step 4. Discuss the problems of classification the early chemist
encountered, the classes of the elements, metals, non-metals, metaloids,
their properties, physical and chemical, that enable the chemist to
group into separate families.
Step 5. Demonstrate, by experimentation, that the activity of a metal
can be judged by the way it releases hydrogen from water or from an acid.
Return to Chemistry Index