Books On The Periodic Table
Vinnie Frevert
Noelle: I also started in the toxic chemicals world, but my background is more in the natural sciences. I was looking at how these substances travel through the atmosphere, what chemical reactions they undergo, how they reach faraway places. The idea that toxic pollutants have long been emitted and then have impacts far away has motivated a lot of international policymaking on these substances.
Henrik: There are a couple of other elements that are similarly interesting both from an environmental science and policy perspective. Lead is one, and also copper and cadmium, for example. But part of the reason we wanted to write about mercury is that it has a very long history of human uses, going back thousands of years, in its various forms. It is one of the first elements that humans discovered and started making products of and used. In terms of sustainability and materials use, it offers an almost unique, long-term case study.
Noelle: One of the things the book does is humanize the process of science. It highlights the personalities of the scientists who discovered some of these elements and did some of the fundamental research, and how social connections among scientists resulted in some of the early discoveries and scientific advances related to the periodic table.
Noelle: The Story of N is written by a historian at Michigan Tech, who works in environmental history. It tells the story of societies developing through the lens of nitrogen. It starts in prehistoric times and brings you all the way up to the present, covering the history of agriculture and the creation of agricultural societies, the industrialization of agriculture, the processes that created fertilizer, but also some air pollution issues that come into play with nitrogen chemistry and the emerging environmental problems that come from the human alterations of the nitrogen cycle. Gorman looks at that process and talks about how societies have addressed ecological limits with technologies and policies.
Noelle: The second half of the book talks a lot about their legal battles and their struggles with the legal system, not only to get compensation but also to prevent this kind of thing from happening again.
Henrik: Also, many of the girls died before they could get any compensation. The authorities were slow to act. Corporate managements, in both cases, were denying any kind of responsibility, dragging it out, appealing. They were basically trying to run down the clock, thinking that if they could keep this going in the courts and the workers died before there is any kind of legal settlement, then they would be off the hook.
Currently, there are 17 chemically similar elements that are in this rare earth category. The first one was discovered in Ytterby in the late 1700s. This was 230 plus years ago, which is very different from mercury that has been known about and used for millennia. And even if some of these rare earth metals were used before, they have only entered the arena of big business over the last couple of decades, because of the technological revolution with computers and cell phones and satellites and batteries for electric cars. This is where the rare earth metals have become economically valuable and integral to modern society.
For example, the last chapter is focused on the development of the silicon chip, with silicon being an element. The internet and Google and social media have changed the way we receive information and interact with other people. And this is, in fact, rewiring our brains. This is something that we should be aware of and think about. What kind of society do we want going forward? How do we want to interact with each other, and might there be some downside to this idea that we should continuously be connected or hooked up to something?
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Henrik Selin is Associate Professor of International Relations at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University. He is the author of Global Governance of Hazardous Chemicals (MIT Press).
Noelle Eckley Selin is Associate Professor in the Institute for Data, Systems, and Society and the Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences at MIT. Her research focuses on the environmental transport and fate of mercury and other chemicals.
Aside from being a neat piece of art, the periodic table reminds me of how one discovery can lead to countless others. All the complexity of the universe comes from the properties on that chart. Because we understand atoms, we can make chips, and therefore we can make software, and therefore we can make AI. Everything goes back to the periodic table.
But how exactly did the periodic table come to be? Anyone who has taken a grade school science class might remember that it was first proposed by the Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleyev. But the table was actually the culmination of two-and-a-half millennia of scientific discovery.
It is true to say that one of the best things (for me) about the education profession is that it is ever changing; always developing. As we learn more about how learning takes place and seek to do better by our learners in the classroom, we seek out new ideas, new research, new inspiration. I have always loved reading and one of my favourite ways to learn more is through the reading of educational books. Yes, I love Jack Reacher, Harry Bosch, so forth and so on, but just as much as I love to read fiction, I love to read things that help me become a better and more informed educator.
As with many of my Periodic tables, I have two versions available. One which you can download and print out for your staff room notice board and another which I have added to ThingLink with links to all of the different books and where you can purchase them on Amazon. Here is the ThingLink version:
This practice also turns our car rides into educational experiences, so far mostly in the history department. Recently, however, we expanded our horizons with a little chemistry, which has captivated everyone, from my son who fancies himself a bit of a chemist to the one who is a dinosaur fanatic and ordinarily runs from any equation, chemical or mathematical.
Inspired by the periodic table, The Disappearing Spoon by Sam Kean tells tales of the elements throughout history, from Dmitri Mendeleev's initial organization of the periodic table to the race to discover new elements to the roles various elements have played in war, medicine, and art. We listened to the young reader's edition, which I admit made me a little nervous. Would the kids' version be dumbed down? Not well written? Like listening to a poor translation?
Not having read the original, I can't compare the two versions. But what I can say with certainty is that the young reader's version does not seem dumbed down. It gets into electron orbitals and how chemical bonds are formed, why some elements are more reactive than others, and what it means for something to be an isotope, all in language my 8-, 10-, and 12-year-olds can understand.
I've stopped the story from time to time to make sure my 8-year-old is following certain concepts, and I quickly realized that it would help him to see a picture of the periodic table (his brothers were already familiar with it). We looked one up on my phone immediately upon arriving at our first destination, and I subsequently pulled Chemistry: The Atom and Elements by April Chloe Terrazas off our bookshelf to help him with some additional chemistry background as we continued listening. If you read the book rather than listening to it on CD, you'll have explanatory illustrations right there in the text.
And of course, they loved the idea of tricking unsuspecting tea drinkers with a magically disappearing gallium spoon, which looks just like the normal silver variety but whose low melting point causes it to vanish into a warm drink. We watched a video of this trick on YouTube (see above) and got excited about the idea of making our own gallium spoons (which we would be able to re-form once the gallium returned to its solid state), until we found out that disappearing-gallium-spoon kits go for about $90, a little out of my budget for practical jokes and magic tricks.
We also enjoyed learning about the work of Marie Curie, who was part of the only mother-daughter pair to have won the Nobel Prize and was the first scientist to win it twice, in physics in 1903 and in chemistry in 1911. My boys are already supremely interested in learning about winners of the Nobel Prize, and with that in mind, I had previously purchased Madame Curie, a biography by Marie Curie's daughter Eve. I have been newly inspired to bump the book up on our reading list.
This FREE printable is a great way to help kids memorize all the Books of the Bible! Normally, the Periodic Table is used to organize and classify chemical elements. But this Books of the Bible Periodic Table is specially created and organized to best help kids learn all the books of the Bible! This periodic table isn't just helpful, it is also super fun to either give to kids or use as decorations in your home or classroom.
This FREE printable goes great with our Books of the Bible 12-Week Children's Ministry Curriculum, our most popular series; but is also perfect to use with Hands On Faith 6-Week Children's Ministry Curriculum.
This best-selling periodic table book has the elements arranged by order of appearance on the periodic table. And each element has a full spread that includes images of it in various forms. You know what oxygen is, but do you know what it actually looks like in its purest form? (Spoiler: a gorgeous blue.) Also included in the book are facts, figures, and stories of the elements, as well as the atomic weight, density, melting and boiling point, valence, electronegativity, and the year and location in which each element was discovered.
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