1. Castle Mendeleev – Periodic Table Designing the Investigation
Lynn Bachellor
Acknowledgements
NSF Award ESI
http//plcmets.pbworks.com
Professional Learning Community Model for Entry into Teaching Science
Target Audience
Designing the Investigation
Communication
8th Grade Science
Students will communicate verbally in their groups as they work as well written as they create the descriptions for the next two rooms.
What information would you need to know in order to describe potassium and calcium? If you were the author of the activity, what information would you include as you describe the rooms of potassium and calcium?
Use of Technology
Objectives
Activity Description
Technology may be used to show students pictures of the elements. Students will use an ELMO to present their descriptions of potassium and calcium.
8.9B – The student will interpret information about elements used to group elements on the Periodic Table.
In this activity, students imagine they are with Mendeleev in a castle with rooms made of different elements. Each room is described using clues to help identify the element. Students go room to room deciding which element the room is composed of as they travel. As students read and discuss each room, they will underline/highlight key information in the description that they feel is the ‘key’ to identifying that room. Students should identify the name of each element before moving on to the next room. Students will be called on to present their ‘keys’ to each room during class discussion.
Students will create the description for potassium and calcium. Once they are completed with their descriptions, their descriptions will be given to another student as a challenge to identify.
Clues include the location on the periodic table, physical and chemical properties, valence electrons, reactivity, and so on. Students may use a dictionary or textbook if needed.
Assessment
Students will write the descriptions for potassium and calcium. Students will select the best description in their team and present to the class. Teacher will grade based on teacher-generated rubric. Rubric might include such features as creativity, challenge or difficulty of description, number of clues provided in description, ability of another student to identify the element described, and so on.
Generating Questions
Have a picture of potassium (pictured below) on display when students walk in for class. Ask students to describe the object pictured and make a guess as to what the name is of the object.