A Photographic Periodic Table of the Elements

Last week at the California Academy of Sciences we picked up these fantastic posters placements (evidently!) that we’re planning on hanging (one will go in our homeschool area and one will head into work with David for his cubicle).

The whole family has been pouring over the posters. I love how these pictures (and interesting factoids written up on the reverse side) have been jump starting family conversations about chemistry and physics.

What a great use of photography to illustrate the composition of our elements. The sample items are almost as interesting as the elements themselves!

The authors website, The Photographic Periodic Table of the Elements, contains a wealth of information and many more photos for each of the elements. There are two companion books, The Elements: A Visual Exploration of Every Known Atom in the Universe and Theo Gray’s Mad Science: Experiments You Can do At Home – But Probably Shouldn’t, also available. I’m looking forward to checking them out from the library.