Designing Like a Scientist

How a Fictional Elements Game Teaches the Periodic Table Through Modeling Instruction

How a drag-and-drop chemistry interactive transforms passive content delivery into an evidence-based discovery experience — and why students taking pictures of their work is the whole point.

The Problem With Teaching the Periodic Table

Most students encounter the periodic table as a finished artifact.

They are handed 118 elements arranged in a precise grid — the endpoint of more than a century of scientific struggle — and are asked to memorise it.

The intellectual journey is erased.

Students learn that sodium belongs to Group 1 before they understand why grouping was necessary in the first place. They know the answer before they have experienced the question.

But the periodic table was not born complete. It was constructed through uncertainty, incomplete data, competing classifications, and bold pattern recognition — most famously by Dmitri Mendeleev in 1869.

What if students could experience that process for themselves?

The Design Philosophy: Make Students Be the Scientists

The Elements and Periodic Table Explorer is built on a single principle:

Students should discover the structure of the periodic table — not receive it.

To achieve this, the game introduces 20 fictional substances — Skybreeze, Nightcrystal, Crimsonflow, Heavydull. The names are invented. The identifiers are invented.

This choice is not cosmetic. It is pedagogically essential.

Because no one has prior knowledge of “Floatium” or “Greensting,” every student faces a genuinely open question:

Given the following information, how will you classify these substances?

There is no recall advantage.
No tuition advantage.
No Google advantage.

Only reasoning.

Scaffolded Revelation: A Four-Level Data System

Scientific models are not built from complete data. They evolve as evidence accumulates.

The interactive mirrors this through staged information release.

Level 1 — Physical Appearance

(State · Colour)

Students see only observable properties: gas, liquid, solid; colour.

Many begin with a simple model:

Gases
Liquids
Solids

This is historically accurate. Early chemists grouped substances by observable traits.

The model is incomplete — but legitimate.

Level 2 — Atomic Identity

(+ Proton Number · Atomic Mass)

Now numbers enter the scene.

Some students begin ranking by proton number. Others try clustering by similar masses. Some cling to their original state-based model.

Tension appears.

The data is richer — but the organising principle is still unclear.

This productive instability is the learning space.

Level 3 — Electron Structure

(+ Shells · Outermost Electrons)

This is the pivot.

Two powerful patterns become visible:

Substances with the same number of shells align horizontally → periods
Substances with the same number of outermost electrons align vertically → groups

Students often describe this moment as a “click.”

That click is model convergence.

They have not been told what a group is.
They have detected it.

Level 4 — Thermal Properties

(+ Melting Point · Boiling Point)

Now the model can be tested.

Do substances in the same vertical column show similar thermal behavior?
Do metallic clusters differ systematically from non-metallic ones?

Students are no longer classifying.

They are validating.

The Modeling Instruction Workflow

This interactive is intentionally designed to align with Modeling Instruction — a research-based pedagogy in which students construct, test, compare, and revise models rather than receiving them.

Phase 1 — Individual Model Construction

Students work independently.

They drag and arrange the 20 element cards into groups that make sense to them.
There is no auto-correct.
No right-answer feedback.
No validation check.

The only prompt:

How will you classify these?

The frictionless drag-and-drop interface lowers the cost of revision.
Moving a card is easy — changing one’s mind is normalised.

Phase 2 — Artifact Creation (The Screenshot)

When satisfied, students click 📷 Download Picture.

The workspace is rendered into a high-resolution PNG.

This moment matters.

The screenshot transforms a temporary arrangement into a claim.

Students are no longer “trying something.”
They are publishing a model.

This commitment ritual changes the psychology of the task.

Phase 3 — Public Comparison (The Whiteboard)

Students upload their images to a shared platform — SLS discussion board, Padlet, Slides, or a physical whiteboard.

Now the classroom becomes a conference.

Thirty models.
Same dataset.
Different conclusions.

The teacher facilitates comparison:

“What pattern did this group notice?”
“Why do these two models disagree?”
“Which Level 3 evidence challenges our Level 1 grouping?”

Students are not comparing against authority.
They are comparing interpretations.

This mirrors scientific discourse.

Phase 4 — The Consensus Model

Only after students have committed to their models does the teacher reveal a Sample Answer.

Not as “the correct solution.”

But as:

Here is how chemists eventually organised the data.

The historical parallel becomes explicit.

When Dmitri Mendeleev organised the periodic table, he was not memorising it.
He was detecting patterns in incomplete information.

Students recognise that the structure they discovered matches the one history preserved.

The periodic table shifts from a static diagram to a negotiated scientific model.

Why the Design Works

1. No Prior Knowledge Advantage

Fictional elements ensure authentic inquiry.

2. Low Cognitive Load at Entry

All 20 cards fit in a single view at Level 1. The whole problem space is visible.

3. Persistent Workspace

Advancing levels does not erase previous thinking. Students see how models survive — or collapse — under new evidence.

4. Durable Artifacts

The PNG download enables asynchronous discussion, reflection, and portfolio use.

5. Sample Answer as Historical Lens

It frames consensus as emergent, not imposed.

6. Self-Contained Build

No CDNs. No external APIs. Fully offline. Compatible with Singapore’s SLS environment.

Reliability removes friction from pedagogy.

What Students Are Actually Learning

They are not just learning:

What a period is
What a group is

They are learning:

How scientific knowledge is constructed
How models evolve
How evidence constrains classification
How consensus emerges

In philosophy of science, this is called building an intersubjective model — a shared structure validated through multiple independent interpretations.

This is how peer review works.
This is how the Royal Society works.
This is how the periodic table was born.

The Epistemological Shift

Traditional lesson:
Students memorise a grid.

This lesson:
Students reconstruct a structure.

The difference is not stylistic.

It is epistemological.

Students are not told what the periodic table is.

They experience how it became known.

And that understanding is far more durable.

Recommended Classroom Sequence

Assign Level 1–2 (15 min pre-lesson exploration)
Students download Level 1 screenshot before progressing
Collect images via SLS / Padlet / Slides
Begin lesson with gallery comparison
Students advance to Level 3–4 in class
Reveal Sample Answer
Discuss: What changed? What held?

Accompanying worksheet prompt:

Name the categories you created and explain what they share in common.

That sentence — written by the student — is the evidence of learning.

Final Thought

A student who:

Struggles to classify 20 fictional elements
Revises their model three times
Sees their screenshot displayed beside 12 competing interpretations
Debates electron shells
Then recognises the historical solution

…will not forget what a period is.

Because they did not memorise it.

They discovered it.

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