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| The first activity has the students explore elemental properties to search for trends. |
This lesson plan is intended for high school chemistry students (mostly tenth graders) and will likely last for 2-3 class periods. In this lesson, students will be exploring different elemental properties and the associated trends on the periodic table. It uses an interactive website to give students the opportunity to make observations about these properties and the patterns that appear on the periodic table. This inquiry-based approach allows students to construct their own understanding of patterns and trends within the periodic table. This activity will end with a class discussion where findings are shared and explained to the class. This should be student-guided, with the teacher moderating the discussion and ensuring that all of the patterns are found. Students can take notes using an exploration chart to help organize their thoughts.
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| An exploration chart for students to use during the activities. |
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| The second activity guides students through atomic structure and how it relates to periodic trends. |
The lesson plan also includes a "research" activity. This activity uses another tool on the interactive website that allows students to build an atom. Instead of focusing on finding and defining periodic trends, this activity aims to have students consider what is causing the properties that exhibit trends. As students move through the on-screen activity, they will also be modeling the results with a tug of war demonstration. The lesson wraps up by having students predict relative properties of different elements and has them answer a few questions about periodic trends.
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| The online element builder allows students to explore the interactions |
The Ohio Science Standards state that:
"The repeating pattern in the electron configurations for
elements on the periodic table explain many of the trends in the properties observed.
Atomic theory and bonding must be used to explain trends in properties across
periods or down columns including atomic radii, ionic radii, first ionization energies,
electronegativities and whether the element is a solid or gas at room temperature."
This activity aligns with much of that statement. Students first explore the trends that exist in atomic and ionic radii, ionization energies, and electronegativities through the pattern-finding observation activity. Once they have identified the patterns, they use the element builder activity to explore how atomic structure causes this variation in properties. This lesson plan does not explicitly address electron configurations or identification of elements as solids or gases, but otherwise it largely addresses the standards statement.
In general, I like the structure of the lesson. Students are able to explore the properties and trends themselves and reach some general conclusions before a more in-depth exploration is used to explain these properties. However, the resources I use for implementation might be different than those suggested in the lesson plan. This lesson plan was written by the creators of the interactive periodic table website, which requires a license to access. There are alternative interactive periodic tables (such as https://www.ptable.com/) that offer the same functionality and are free to use. The element builder program could also be easily modeled on the board or with concrete representations on a desk. There are also programs that offer free limited access (like the Element Builder Gizmo) that would work for students. From experience, students are more easily able to use the trends to give rankings of different elements than they are able to explain the reasoning behind the rankings. I would likely add another activity into this lesson plan to give students more exposure to the atomic properties underlying periodic trends.
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