Periodic Table

Walton, Malcolm             Chicago Vocational High School
8837 S. Cornell             933-8100
Chicago, IL 60617
221-5872

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.