Elements and Their Families

Have you ever wondered why the Periodic Table is so colorful?
Here's a picture introducing our lesson. 
The colors correspond to shared characteristics, like electron configurations and expected behavior when they interact with other elements. To simplify things, we call them "families".

Noble Gases
Our first family to consider is a group of elements called the Noble Gases. They don't usually interact with other elements. You can find all of them on the far right of the Periodic Table. 

We read the number, abbreviation, and name of each element. We find each element on the periodic table. We mark each with our breakfast cereal. Along the way, we learned how to say the elements' names with this song: https://youtu.be/OtGCjr22c0A
Here is how we set up our table for this lesson.
Note how the words "noble gases" and the element squares are all written with the same color. 

Halogens
We also played this game with some other families of elements, including halogens. Halogens react easily with other elements. They all have 7 electrons in their outer shell. When they interact with Hydrogen, they form acids. 

Here's a song we sang about Halogens to remember their names. https://youtu.be/bScNz0uyyNs 

Alkaline Earth Metals
This family of elements all have two valence electrons. They are great at conducting heat and electricity. We also have a song about Alkaline Earth Metals. https://youtu.be/9YkOnMEHwt8

Bringing Families Together
After we learned about a few families, here's an activity where we just had to match the colors of the cards with the colorful names of the families. It's elementally easy!

Here's a video of a matching lesson.


Elements in Martian Meteorites
Scientists analyze the elemental composition of meteorites to determine where they might have come from. Here is a photo of a meteorite that matches the Martian atmosphere as was detected by a Viking probe in the 1970s.
In this picture, the meteorite is located in a plasma cleaning device, which sanitizes the surface of the meteorite prior to analysis.
Read more about this image in the NASA image archives https://images.nasa.gov/details-PIA22247

Elemental Analysis on Rovers and Spacecraft
Our ability to test the composition of Martian rocks has advanced over the years, thanks to rovers that crawl on Mars' surface. Here is a spectral analysis of rocks as taken by the Curiosity rover in 2012.
Want to learn more about spectroscopy from the Lunar and Planetary Institute? Here's a PDF that's written for kids. I have included a couple of photos of it below, but the PDF offers higher resolution. LPI poster
Here is another blog post where we mention the launch of Mars 2020, and the Perseverance Rover. http://steamma.blogspot.com/2021/06/4-lessons-about-space.html?m=1

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