DATE: Feb. 4 , 2008
Students use superhero powers to learn periodic table:
Nelson Ridge teacher Mike Rokoczy has found a creative way for students learn the periodic table – a mind-number arrangement of chemical elements.
If there’s one thing Nelson Ridge teacher Mike Rakoczy has learned through the years, it’s that students retain information better when they have fun doing it. That’s why he found a creative way for students to learn the periodic table — a mind-numbing arrangement of chemical elements.
In December, he had students select an element from the periodic table and then create a superhero — or villain — that had power over that element and could use it for good or evil. Some chose elements such as neptunium or chlorine to save the world. Twelve-year-old Katelyn Radovich selected helium as her superhero power. She used it to inflate balloons at the touch of her hand.
“It (got) me interested in the elements,” Katelyn said of the periodic table lesson. “I got to learn what (the various elements) can do.”
In a story Katelyn had to write to accompany her superhero powers, she explained she acquired the ability to inflate balloons from her mother, Helium Woman. They used their powers to fight their nemesis, Evil Dr. Rock. Not everyone chose to use their superhero powers for good, however.
“More boys chose to be a villain,” said Rakoczy, who enjoyed reading the stories they came up with to explain their powers, how they acquired them and how they used them.
“They may not realize it, but they’re learning,” he said.