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Productive Struggle

 

"How can we teach students to make sense of problems and to persevere when a problem is challenging? In my experience, we can't. We can, however, create classrooms that cultivate these skills, and the formula for doing this is simple: provide students challenging problems, and empower them with the skills and resources they need to solve those problems. Then get out of their way. We need to insist that students exhaust all other resources before seeking our help. And even then, we need to respond to students questions with questions rather than answers."  -  David Ginsberg

 

Below is a short project I created for my Honors Chemistry class in which I employed the ideas of productive struggle to help students make deeper connections between atomic structure and the overall structure of the periodic table.

 

 

Honors Chemistry

Welcome to Planet P-10

 

March 14, 2014 - An amazing discovery was accidentally made by Washington State University astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope.  While probing dust clouds in what they thought was interstellar medium, these astronomers stumbled across a small, previously unknown planet at the farthest edge of our solar system.  This planet has yet to be named and is simply known as P-10 (the tenth planet in our solar system).  Soon after its discovery, scientists became frantic to learn more about this long overlooked planet.  Plans were soon made to launch a probe in 1999.

 

October 4, 2021 - It has been several years since data returned from the probe’s survey of P-10 and the WAZU scientists are increasingly perplexed.  According to information received from the probe, the elemental composition of P-10 was amazingly exotic.  If the data was correct, P-10 was constructed of completely new and never before seen elements.  Realizing that the enormity of this discovery was beyond their capabilities to explain, the P-10 project scientists decided to consult with astrophysicists from the University of Washington. 

 

October 7, 2021 - At last a breakthrough!  After several days of very hard work, the U. of W. scientists believe they have the answer for the unique elemental structure of P-10.  Apparently, a small number of the current quantum mechanical theories do not seem to apply on P-10.  For some unknown reason, electron orbitals within atoms on P-10 are confined to spatial orientations which are much more restrictive than those found on Earth.  Specifically:

 

P orbitals within atoms on P-10 have 2 rather than 3 spatial orientations.

 

D orbitals within atoms on P-10 have 3 rather than 5 spatial orientations.

 

F orbitals within atoms on P-10 have 4 rather than 7 spatial orientations.

 

 

ALL OTHER POSTULATES OF QUANTUM MECHANICS ARE FOUND TO BE THE SAME ON P-10 AS THEY ARE ON EARTH (THE PAULI EXCLUSION PRINCIPLE, THE AUFBAU PRINCIPLE, HUNDS RULE, ETC…)

 

In order to communicate the significance of this discovery to other scientists, do the following:

 

Construct a new periodic table which demonstrates your findings using existing elemental names and atomic numbers.  This table should include the first 80 elements (Hydrogen through Mercury) and demonstrate the periodic nature of elements on P-10.

 

Name those elements on P-10 which correspond to noble gases on Earth.

 

Name those elements on P-10 which correspond to the most active metals on Earth.

                                                                                                                                   

Classify metals and nonmetals on P-10 and predict which elements will undergo ionic/covalent bonding.

 

Show the trends in as many periodic properties as you can and give examples within a group and period.

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