Create your own Periodic Table
In this project, you are to construct a periodic table on a school-appropriate topic of your choosing. Examples of items to use are: beads, musical groups, photographs, fish, types of soccer balls, Legos, shoes or any other item you can think of would work! Be creative!
This is due on Thursday November 17th.
Guidelines:
Periodic Table must contain 4 periods and 8 families of a representative (short) periodic table. You do not have to include any “Transition elements.”
A key (sample element box) must be given.
Items in vertical columns (groups) must be similar in some manner and have some variation and gradual change as you move up or down the column. In other words, it should exhibit a trend. Label each group by family name.
To create your Periodic Table you may use pictures from the internet, magazines, catalogs, or your own photos or actual objects. The numbers used must be searchable or actual data collected by you.
You must have an abstract (explanation) that describes your periodic table. It needs to explain the trends in your table. You must explain:
what each column or family in your table represents
what the vertical trend is as you move down the group (column) of your periodic table
what the horizontal trend or periodicity is as you move across a row (period).
How do the horizontal AND vertical trends match to ONE of the trends (atomic radius, electronegativity, or ionization energy) studied in the actual periodic table? Please be sure to reference any sources used.
How is this similar to Mendeleev’s discovery of the periodic table? How is it different?
The final project can be turned in using any format you choose including a video, slide deck or in a written report. Be sure all items above are addressed and that you have provided enough pictures that your teacher will be able to assess your knowledge.
Some emailed questions and answers with this summative:
Should we arrange our elements the same as the real periodic table? For example, our first element where hydrogen is, and the second where helium is. Should we also have two elements in the first period and 8 elements in the others?
When I first created this summative, I wasn't really thinking about including Hydrogen and Helium. However, you are more than welcome to if you want! Some students found a way to incorporate them, and some did not. You can still get full points on the summative if you do not include the two 'lone elements.'


You said we didn't need to include the two lone elements. Does that mean we do periods 2-5? If we do include them, do we only need to be periods 1-4?
If you do not include the two lone elements, you can do periods 2-5.
If you include them, you can do periods 1-4 or periods 1-5. Students who had periods 1-5 mentioned in the ‘abstract’ (something along the lines that) the first two elements (in the same period 1) reinforce the periodicity and that they did not consider it 1 of the 4 periods in the rubric.


You also mentioned we needed a key or sample element box. What does that mean? Also, do you have any examples?
I'm combining these questions together to give a specific example with the element box. I do not have specific examples because I required it as a video option only last time and this time I am not. One memorable example was a student who did with the characters on the TV show Grey's Anatomy. That student had a 'key' of the 'element' that included a picture, first and last name of the character, number of seasons of appearance, and 'years of school.' They had groups of types of doctors (neuro, cardio, peds., plastic surgeons, etc.) and then showed the pattern within the horizontal period by 'years of school/research.' That was memorable because I personally don't know much about Grey's Anatomy but was impressed that the student was able to make a strong analogy with more than one periodic trend and Grey's Anatomy. (I'm only requiring you to make an analogy with one.) This student even had 'empty pics' on the PT but talked about which character should be introduced to the show in order and why. Some other examples I remember are sports equipment, food (fast food restaurants, produce), hardware tools, music, and even Legos (someone building with Lego pieces.)