Define and Discover:

The problem:

As a group we need to come up with a new way to represent the periodic table of elements.

Questions:

What does the periodic table show us?

How are the elements represented on the periodic table?

Are the elements separated into groups?

Are the elements split into solids, liquids, and gasses?

Can the Lanthanides and Actinides be incorporated into the main table in some way?

Dream:

What information does the periodic table tell us?

The periodic table tells us the symbol of the element and it’s atomic number. It tells us what period and what group the element is in. It tells us the types of elements. For example, metals and nonmetals. It can tell you what state the element is in at room temperature. It tells you the name of the groups of elements. For example, alkali metals and noble gasses.

How could you arrange it differently based on it’s chemical and physical properties?

Physical properties you could sort your elements by are:

Color, Boiling Point, Melting Point and Density

Chemical properties you could sort your elements by:

Reactivity to oxygen, Flammability, Toxicity, and Acidity

What different shapes could be used?

You could make the shape of the table a pyramid, a tree, a circle, a pentagon, a hexagon, an octagon. You could make the shape of the boxes that the elements go in squares, triangles, circles, ovals, rectangles.

How can you use color?

You can use color to separate the elements into types of elements (metals and nonmetals) and to separate them into their groups (noble gasses and halogens). You can use color to represent what state they are at room temperature.

Design

Our Plan:

We are going to make the shape of the periodic table a tree and separate the elements into there groups. To distinguish the groups we are going to color each group a different color.

Deliver:

Our periodic table is in the shape of a tree and separates the elements into groups. Once the elements are in their groups they are in number order by their atomic number. Our periodic table is split into 10 groups. The elements are organized into groups based on similar chemical properties. For example, all of the Alkali Metals have one electron in their outer shell. We included the Lanthanides and the Actinides on our table instead of putting them in their own category outside the table.

Debrief:

We could have improved our plan by increasing the size of the boxes and writing the elements name underneath their symbol. Once we made the boxes bigger we could have added the elements state at room temperature in the corner. When coloring we used a couple colors that looked similar, so next time we could try and use completely different colors.