I'm a new Student in Chemistry...Help!?

Question

My daughter is new in Chemistry. Is there a way she can learn the Table of the Periodic Elements easier than straight brute memory? I heard there were ways to memorize it easy.

Answer 1

Speaking as a physical sciences teacher...most of these are learned by doing. (No easy mnemonics unless you are Japanese or Russian, I'm afraid. "For all the Him & Hers: Little Betty Bright Child, Nurses Our Friends Neatly. Nasty Magy Always Sings Pop Songs Clearly Around Kirsty Carol", is one terrible one I've encountered. Fortunately, it is a rare chemistry teacher which demands that you know the first couple of rows in order...)

Besides there will be many more properties exposed to your child as she progress into the courses. But there are some things that are initially helpful:

The easiest way is to look for the main groupings:

SPONCH - easy nonsense word - each of these are the main elements needed for organic compounds (sulphur, phosphorus, oxygen, nitrogen, carbon, hydrogen). Easy because the names start with the same letter. Also, note the shape it fills out on the table.


Next, look for the "natural" groupings -- by these, I mean those elements that are located in the same columns. This is important because they tend to share the same types of chemical properties.

For example the noble gases tend to be non-reactive -- and they are all located in the same row VIIIA:
helium (He), neon (Ne), argon (Ar), krypton(Kr), xenon(Xe),radon( Rn).

Other columns? Some can be remembered in terms of their tendencies to find each other in nature.

For example, there's a natural pairing system set up in terms of simple salts:

The alkali metals:
Na, Li, Rb, K - the metals needed for your simple salts

The halogens (non-metals)
Fl, Cl, Br, I - non-metals (gases) needed for your simple salts, tend to also form noxious gases

When you make simple salts, they always are found with each other and only one of each group is needed to make the salt.

E.g., NaCl, NaBr, KCl etc. are examples of simple salts


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Other elements that she should be aware of are the older elements:
aurum (gold = Au),
silver (argentum = Ag)
lead (plumbum = Pb)
These are important because of their long history and they are still frequently used.in chemistry. (Heck, they're common enough for regular use.) Latin does come in handy too...

Lastly, there are elements which have easy names to remember because the abbreviations are so similar to their real names:
silicon is Si
boron is B
uranium is U
and so on.

Hope this helps.

Answer 2

the only way I know of is to come up with little sayings for them.... Like, I still remember gold and silver from sixth grade because I came up with Au-stay away from my gold (said like 'ay you, as in hey you) and Ah, gee, it's only silver (silver is Ag, gold is Au).

The more silly sayings you can come up with, the easier they are to remember.

Answer 3

I dont know much but i will try to help. there are many sites that help you memorize. also there are ways she can learn them. she can learn by columns. for exmaple, first column is halogens

Answer 4

it's is called a mnemonic device.

http://www.google.com/search?q=mnemonic+periodic+elements