Anatomy of An Element

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Powerpoint Presentation 

Day by Day Lesson Plan

Days:  1   2    3   4    5   6/7   8/9  10-12  13 

       This lesson is to help students become acquainted with the periodic chart and to give them a foundation of how the elements are made up of one atom and are arranged on the chart by their chemical properties.    

Standard Addressed:
Science: Focus on Physical Science
Elements

1.  Elements and their combinations account for all the varied types of matter in the world.

d.  Students know that each element is made of one kind of atom and that the elements are organized in the periodic table by their chemical properties.

•           The lesson is designed for a classroom with only 2 to 3 computers.  Student activities will allow students to work online and at their desks in groups at same time.

•   Class can be split into groups for activities.  This lesson can be expanded by doing more of the matter experiments in the class.  Pretest should be given first to help assess prior knowledge of matter and atoms.  

•    Time for each day runs about one hour.  Have a timer present to keep students from staying too long on computers.  With three computers and the class split up into groups of two, you can allot fifteen minutes per group per day to work on the computers.  

•    Students will probably need more than fifteen minutes on their Third, Fourth, and Fifth Visits to the computer.  You can either send them twice over a two day period or you could extend the time from the start on these days and have the groups spend thirty minutes, thus making half the class go one day and the other half the next day.  (I chose fifteen minutes blocks at first, and then found was better to give them thirty minutes blocks at a time.)

Day 1 - Give Pretest

     Assess before going on to Day 2.

Day 2

  Introductory Activity:  

    Go to Stacy Miller's lesson plans,  to choose a few that you would like to do.  These should be chosen according to what they did not know on the pretest.  Do them as a whole class or put the students into groups and let them do them on their own.  Hand out a vocabulary sheet for them to have and as you go over the different words, have them refer to it.  
    

Day 3

  Introductory Activity:  (First Visit)

 Pick a couple more of Stacy Miller's lesson plans for the students to do on their own while other students view the online web site about matter and atoms.  Have the students take the Online matter questionnaire and fill out the downloaded worksheet for atoms.  Answers come with download.

     You could also have the students at desks build atom models while the others are at the computers visiting the online sites on matter and atoms.  

Day 4

  Introductory Activity:

   Students need to understand that different things have properties.  Start with a button activity and have the students discuss different ways that buttons can be organized.  Have them put the buttons into their different properties.  I have made a worksheet for your use.  After the activity with buttons, have the students discuss the different properties they found and introduce matter and atoms.  Grading Rubrics.

Day 5

  Introductory Activity:  (Second Visit)

     Show the students a periodic table and get there input as to why certain elements are grouped together and why the elements maybe organized the way they are.  Have them look for similarities and differences.  

     Teachers at this time needs to give some background history of the periodic table.  Have the students visit online examples of other alternate designs of the periodic table.  Go to history and alternate designs web site. or visit Kostas Tsigaridis' web site.

     Have the students not on the computers think about how they would design their own periodic table from the information they already know.  This could be a discussion or you could have them design a periodic table and give an oral presentation on how they went about organizing the different elements.  This would depend on whether you wanted to expand the lesson or not. 

Day 6/7

  Enabling Activity:  (Third Visit)

     Have students online play different games in order for them to learn more about the elements.  Have the students pick a partner or choose them one and let them visit the Jefferson Lab classroom resource page for online element games:  Element Concentration, Element Flash Cards, Element Hangman, Element Matching Game, and Element math Game.  Have them take the Periodic Table Challenge.

    Download a copy of two different paper games from the Jefferson Lab classroom resource page:  Element Bingo and Element Word Search for the students to play and do at their desks.  

Day 8/9

   Enabling Activity:  (Fourth Visit)

     Have the students visit different online periodic tables to learn about the different elements:  It's Elemental.  Have the students download a periodic table from the Jefferson web site.  As the students visit different online periodic tables (go to student activities page) have them fill out a worksheet with the name of the element, chemical symbol, atomic number, atomic mass/weight, and other information such as boiling or melting points.  Grading Rubrics.

     Have the students at their desks continue to play the downloaded games.  You also could provide the students with a periodic table and have them start filling in the information that they can from a chart or printed out charts to cut down online computer time.  A good place to get customized periodic tables that are printable is to visit Kostas Tsigaridis' web page.

Day 10 - 12

Final 

   Culminating Activity:  (Fifth Visit)

     Give a mini-lesson on comic strips.  Bring in a couple of comic pages for the students to look at or have them bring in some of their own.  You could show this on overhead projector..  Have them look at how they are put together.  Have them visit and make sure that they have visited the Comic Strip Periodic Table from the University of Kentucky.  This will help them to come up with ideas and get an idea of what you want from them.  Discuss your grading rubric with them and give them a copy of it.  This could also be done by putting it on overhead projector

     Have the students pick two of the elements they have looked at and gathered information on through their visiting the online sites.  Have them think about the element's chemical properties and make a comic strip displaying two elements of their choosing. 

     Be sure to inform them that the elements need to keep their chemical properties.  They cannot have an element do something that is not part of its chemical properties.  

     ** I found that it was easier for some of them to display the chemical properties by showing how we use the element in everyday things such as helium was used by one student in their comic strip and their comic strip showed a boy filling his balloon up with helium and then the balloon floating away.  Let them know that this would be acceptable.

 
Day 13 - Posttest