....and chlorine, carbon, cobalt, copper.......

Some of you seemed a little intrigued with yesterday's blip....so if you're interested read on......if you're not skip down to the last paragraph.

This is the table I give to my pupils and get them to colour for themselves.

Find Br and Mg (Bromine and Mercury) and give them a central blob of yellow....these are the only two liquids on the table.

Find H,He,N,O,F,Ne,Cl,Ar,Kr,Xe and Rn and give them a central blob of pink....these are the 11 gases on the table.

Give everything else a central blob of green....these are all the solids.

Find H,He,B,C,N,O,F,Ne,Si,P,S,Cl,Ar,As,Se,Br,Kr,Te,I,Xe,At and Rn and colour the edges orange...these are the non metals.

Leave the edges of everything else white.....these are the metals.

Now you can easily see:
Most are metals
All the non-metals are together (except Hydrogen (H)
Mercury is the only liquid metal
Bromine is the only liquid non-metal
Group 8 all have full outer electron shells so they are very unreactive...the Noble or Inert gases
Group 1 have only one electron in the outer shell so they are very reactive....the Alkali metals.
Group 7 have seven electrons in the outer shell so they too are very reactive...the Halogens
Group 1 elements are always trying to lose the one outer electron....group 7 elements are always trying to find an extra electron.....so groups 1 and 7 react with each other easily e.g Sodium (Na) reacts with Chlorine (Cl) to make NaCl.....sodium chloride ....common salt.
The columns contain elements that are all similar in structure and behaviour...e.g Cu,Ag,Au and Pt (Copper, Silver, Gold and Platinum) are all used to make jewellery, because they don't corrode (except copper) and are easy to shape and polish.

There you go....that's just about all you need to know except for the meaning of the numbers....but that's for another day.

In other news:
met up with hebs for a smoke today
three nice practicals today (food tests, acids and alkalis and purifying copper carbonate to copper oxide and then to pure copper)
out tonight to Frankie and Benny's with the Daughter for our delayed Christmas meal. (the S&H and YH came out with us around the holiday for a curry) that's the tradition complete...I always take everyone out for a meal over the Festive period.

Das vidanya moy padruga.