Description
What our History of the Periodic Table lesson plan includes
Lesson Objectives and Overview: History of the Periodic Table is a high-interest reading comprehension lesson plan. As such, students will practice various close reading and comprehension skills. In addition, they will learn about how the Periodic Table of Elements came to be, and how it has changed over time. This lesson is for students in 5th grade and 6th grade.
Classroom Procedure
Every lesson plan provides you with a classroom procedure page that outlines a step-by-step guide to follow. You do not have to follow the guide exactly. The guide helps you organize the lesson and details when to hand out worksheets. It also lists information in the yellow box that you might find useful. You will find the lesson objectives, state standards, and number of class sessions the lesson should take to complete in this area. In addition, it describes the supplies you will need as well as what and how you need to prepare beforehand.
Teacher Notes
The paragraph on this page provides a little more information or guidance on what to expect from the lesson. It explains that you can teach this lesson in a whole-class setting or as an independent, small-group activity. You can use the blank lines to record any thoughts or ideas you have as you prepare.
HISTORY OF THE PERIODIC TABLE LESSON PLAN CONTENT PAGES
The Beginning of the Periodic Table
The History of the Periodic Table lesson plan contains two content pages. Before scientists fully understood the elements, people thought everything was made of earth, water, air, and fire. As new substances were discovered, chemists realized they needed a way to organize them. Along came the Periodic Table of Elements! This table has become one of the most essential tools in science. It organizes all of the known elements, the tiny building blocks that make up everything in the universe. Before the table was created, scientists had trouble keeping track of the elements and their properties. Over time, several scientists worked to develop the periodic table we use today.
In the early 1800s, a scientist named John Dalton introduced the idea that all matter is made of tiny particles called atoms. He believed that each element had its own type of atom, which helped scientists understand how elements differed. Later, in 1869, a Russian chemist named Dmitri Mendeleev made a huge breakthrough. He arranged the known elements in a table, putting them in rows and columns based on their atomic weights and chemical properties. He even left spaces in his table for elements that had not yet been discovered, predicting their existence!
Today’s Periodic Table of Elements
Mendeleev’s periodic table was a major success, but it wasn’t perfect. In the early 1900s, an English scientist named Henry Moseley improved the table by organizing the elements by atomic number instead of atomic weight. This clarified the pattern and helped solve problems with Mendeleev’s version. Since then, scientists have added new elements, and today’s periodic table includes 118 elements. Some scientists believe there are two hypothetical elements as well, Ununennium and Unbinilium. Scientists are still working to prove their existence and discover new elements.
Many people don’t know that some elements on the Periodic Table are named after famous scientists, places, and even planets. For example, Curium is named after Marie Curie. Californium is named after the state of California. Plutonium is named after Pluto. Einsteinium is named after Albert Einstein. Another fun fact is that some elements exist only for a fraction of a second before breaking apart! These elements are made in laboratories and are very difficult to study.
The Periodic Table of Elements is more than a chart—it’s a powerful tool that helps scientists predict how elements will behave and react with each other. The vertical columns are called groups, and elements in the same group have similar chemical properties. For example, Group 1, the alkali metals, are very reactive, while the noble gases of Group 18 hardly react. The horizontal rows are called periods, showing how elements change as you move across the table. This organization makes it easy to predict how elements will interact, which is why the table is a valuable tool for scientists. Even though it was created over 150 years ago, the Periodic Table of Elements is still growing and changing.
HISTORY OF THE PERIODIC TABLE LESSON PLAN WORKSHEETS
The History of the Periodic Table lesson plan includes two worksheets: an activity worksheet and a review worksheet. Each one will help students solidify their grasp of the material they learned throughout the lesson. You can refer to the classroom procedure guidelines to know when to hand out each worksheet.
ELEMENT RESEARCH ACTIVITY WORKSHEET
For the activity, students will find out where a number of elements’ names come from, such as Einsteinium (Es), which is named after Albert Einstein. You could make this a race to see which student can finish the fastest.
REVIEW WORKSHEET
The review worksheet lists 5 questions based on the content. These questions all relate to the content pages, so students will need to refer to them often for the answers. In addition, each question provides which reading tool the question corresponds to, such as text feature, vocabulary, or comprehension.
Worksheet Answer Keys
At the end of the lesson plan document is an answer key for the practice worksheet. The correct answers are all in red to make it easier for you to compare them with students’ responses. If you choose to administer the lesson pages to your students via PDF, you will need to save a new file that omits these pages. Otherwise, you can simply print out the applicable pages and keep these as reference for yourself when grading assignments.
