The Periodic Table of Videos

Who said chemistry can’t be fun?  Seriously, who said that??  Well if you ever do hear someone utter those dreadful words, you might want to direct them to the Periodic Table of Videos site put out by the University of Nottingham.  Led by the wild-haired Professor Martyn Poliakoff, the team of chemists and researchers has created short videos for each of the 118 known elements on the periodic table.

The Periodic Table of Videos helps to show viewers not only the elements in their natural and pure states, but also in a brief time provides information about each element’s use, properties, and in some cases experiments are conducted with the elements.  Things even go BOOM sometimes, which I know it a big plus for some high school students!

You might consider the Periodic Table of Videos in any chemistry or physical science class as a short intro to studying the periodic table, for element research, or even as a “element of the day” feature in class since the videos themselves are relatively short – ranging generally from about a minute and a half to about 4 minutes long.  Alternatively the Periodic Table of Videos is a site you might simply recommend to students as a supplement to their regular classwork as they are all easily accessible and provide a great deal of information.

The only downside to using these in school, depending on your district policy, is that all the videos are hosted on YouTube, so even though they are embedded on the Periodic Table of Videos site, the code to play directs filters to YouTube.  Check with your administration and IT Departments about workarounds.

Also of interest:

• Check out the elemental videos on this site but don’t forget the Molecular Videos for more in-depth reactions and experiments.
• For more static images of the elements in their natural state with their properties, visit The Photogenic Periodic Table.
• For the “old School look” with even more images of the elements in use, try The Wooden Periodic Table.