Peer Review

Visual Elements Interpretation of the Periodic Table

Material Detail page

Reviewed:: Apr 26, 2006 by Chemistry

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Ratings

Overall Rating:

Content Quality:

Effectiveness:

Ease of Use:

Overview:: This site provides an artistic rendition of periodic properties of elements
along with detailed scientific explanations. This includes new and vibrant
visual assessment to explore and reflect upon the diversity of elements that
comprise matter in as unique and innovative manner as possible. It does so not
only by rendering images of the respective elements but also by investigating
the manner in which they affect our daily lives in largely unseen and often
unexpected ways.
Type of Material:: The site consists of text and artistic presentations where such things as
ionization potentials are converted into 3 dimensional landscape images as well
as animations, graphs and textual information.
Recommended Uses:: This learning module may be assigned as ancillary material to be viewed as
needed by individual students or in collaborative groups leading to discussion.
Such discussion could increase the interest and abiltiy of a student to
undertand the relationship between chemcial behavior, position in the periodic
table and structure of the element
Technical Requirements:: Requires only standard computer platform with Adobe acrobat reader or Flash, and
Quicktime for viewing movies.
Identify Major Learning Goals:: The purpose appears to be interfacing the numerical details of periodic
elemental properties with artistic presentation to increase interest and spur
the imagination of the reader. It is a very creative site, transforming
abstract
information into concrete images to help relate concepts to chemical behaviour.
Target Student Population:: General chemistry students, including high school students will benefit from
this.
Prerequisite Knowledge or Skills:: Requires only introductory chemistry with basic knowledge of matter, elements
and compounds

Content Quality

Rating:
Strengths:: The artistic and imaginative rendering of numerical information is fabulous as
this site gives a very comprehensive, artisitic, graphic introduction to the
Periodic Table of Elements. The graphics, and animations, etc are very effective
in bringing the information to the user. Each group of elements has detailed
information organized according to several categories as follows: general
features, appearance, general reactrivity, occurrence, extraction, physical and
chemical properties, oxidation states and industrial information
Concerns:: Students will appreciate the beautiful art work, but may have struggles relating

that back to how to use periodic properties to predict and understand chemical
reactivity.

Potential Effectiveness as a Teaching Tool

Rating:
Strengths:: This site can very effectively bring realistic artistic images of trends in
properties and behavior of elements to students. This is an area where
traditionally students have trouble understanding and visualizing. One area
called "Periodic Landscapes" has several beautiful computer generated pictures
based on trends and patterns within the Periodic Table: example, Ionization
Energy plotted against atomic number as 3-D bar chart. The historical
information about the discovery of each element,abundance in the Universe and on
Earth, alchemist symbols for a lot of the elements, and use and applications
are well described and artistically presented including an animation using audi
and video to catch the imagination. It reinforces that Chemistry can indeed be a
"beautiful" subject
Concerns:: It does not cause students to deal with numerical estimates, so the site will be
of more interest and curiosity for those who are likely to remain outside of
science for their careers. Although the information is very beautifully
presented, students would need guidance from instructors in how this extensive
and artistically developed information may be used to help increase their
understanding of elements and their properties

Ease of Use for Both Students and Faculty

Rating:
Strengths:: The site loads quickly and has a pleasing color balance. It is well designed
that is robust and easy to use and navigate without trapping the user. It has
links to several related modules that further explain elements, compounds and
their properties.
Concerns:: The text information is on a scrollable single page. Generally, that drives
users away from the information past the first page. The symbols are obscure.
Nobody will be able to figure out what they mean say they will just randomly
click. Icons are supposed to be a quick guide rather than a source of
puzzlement. One reviewer found the wait time for launching several of the
animations of elements to be a little long, although it is possible that this
was due to high traffic volume for the site.

Other Issues and Comments:: This is a beautiful artistic collection that can serve as a useful resource to
support the belief held by Chemists "There is an inherent beauty to the way
nature is and works, we only need to find a good effective way to present that
to students."
Creative Commons: