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Unique Periodic Table Projects

Learning about the periodic table is a valuable and necessary part of learning chemistry, but can be rather dull, as well. Fortunately, there are ways to turn learning into a game or a project in order to get students more engaged in their learning. In any method, the goal should be to provide students with ways to remember the most common elements of the periodic chart.

Artistic Chart
- Divide students into small groups of two or three. Give each group a large, blank periodic table. Then ask the students to fill in the chart with the element symbols, names and atomic numbers. In addition, have students draw or paste images of objects that are largely made from each element. Encourage creativity and treat this as partially an art project. Associating the elements with more familiar objects, like lightbulbs with tungsten, will help students remember the elements more readily.
Edible Elements
- Prepare plain cupcakes or cookies. Ask students to ice the cupcakes or cookies; you can use different flavors or colors of icing to depict metals, nonmetals and metalloids or to depict different series on the periodic table. Then give each student a piping bag with a thin tip and some dark icing and use this write a chemical symbol on each cupcake or cookie. Be sure to only use one cupcake or cookie for each element. Afterward, arrange the cupcakes or cookies into the periodic table. Have a discussion about the periodic table as you and your students devour the edible periodic table.
Element Memory
- Prepare cards for a Memory-style game, in which participants turn over cards, trying to remember the position of the cards and match two like cards. However, as an alternative to traditional Memory, make one matching card read the name of an element and the other contain its chemical symbol. For instance, a card marked "Zinc" and one marked "Zn" form a pair. This encourages students to remember symbols and element names. Since there are so many elements, you might want students to play using cards from small sections of the periodic table at a time.
Edible Atoms
- The elements are arranged on the periodic table in order by their atomic number, or the number of protons in the nucleus. The nucleus also contains neutrons, the number of which may vary, and a number of electrons equal to the number of protons. Ask the students to make models of the atoms in the periodic table by combining small objects into a ball for the nucleus and using wires or toothpicks to hold out more objects away from the nucleus, forming an electron cloud. To make the project more interesting, try using marshmallows or gumdrops for the nucleus, thus creating a model that the students can eat after studying the periodic table.

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