| Teaching Guide
Please refer to the module Teaching
Guide for additional information.
Lesson summary
Instructional use
Pre-lesson activity
Standards covered by this lesson
Selected bibliography
Assessment
Lesson
summary
This lesson on the history of the periodic table centers on the story
of Dimitri Mendeleyev, the Russian chemist credited with developing the
Periodic Table of Elements. He tells about his family and growing up in
Siberia, and how he came to organize the elements the way that he did
in 1869. Mendeleyev's periodic table looks quite different from the one
commonly used today because so much more knowledge about the nature of
matter has expanded the modern periodic table. However, Mendeleyev knew
there was information scientists were still missing, so he arranged his
table with gaps so that new elements could be added when they were discovered.
His periodic table proved to be correct. Within a few years of developing
the table, the elements he predicted would be discovered were identified
by other chemists throughout Europe. The story emphasizes the nature of
scientific inquiry and history of science.
Instructional use
Please refer to the module Teaching
Guide for instructional use scenarios.
Pre-lesson activity
It is recommended that teachers preview the lesson to identify
concepts that may need to be reviewed before students begin. Teachers
may also wish to create a vocabulary/spelling list for terms found in
this lesson.
Teachers may want to pose some questions to students before getting started:
How do you think scientists communicated with each other about their discoveries
before there was mass communication? How do you think it has changed for
scientists working all over the world today? How do you think scientists
come up with ideas of the "laws of nature"? Do you think people
discover these things alone, or is it the work of lots of people?
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Standards covered
by this lesson
Refer to the module Teaching
Guide for list a Language Arts goals covered by all WebDocent lessons.
Grades 7-8 Science
Illinois State Goal 11
Have a working knowledge of the processes of scientific inquiry and technological
design to investigate questions, conduct experiments, and solve problems.
Illinois State Goal 13
Have a working knowledge of the relationships among science, technology,
and society.
Grads 7-8 Social Science
Illinois State Goal 17
Demonstrate a knowledge of world geography, as well as an understanding
of the effects of geography on society, with an emphasis on the United
States.
Illinois State Goal 18
Understand, analyze, and compare social systems with an emphasis on the
United States.
Selected bibliography
A bibliography is forthcoming. For web resources, refer
to the Web Links page.
Assessment
Refer to the module Teaching
Guide for an explanation of the online journal for assessment purposes.
This lesson includes a multiple choice quiz.
See the Additional Activities page for ideas
for extending the lesson offline.
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