Summary

In this activity, students will play a Bingo game, crossing out the element symbol on their Bingo card that corresponds to the element name announced by the teacher. This will help students to identify element names by their symbol, and vice versa.

Grade Level

High School

Objectives

By the end of this activity, students should be able to:

• Identify element symbols given the name of the element.

Chemistry Topics

This activity supports students’ understanding of:

• Periodic Table
• Element names
• Element symbols

Time

Teacher Preparation: 10 minutes to cut apart Bingo "chips"

Lesson: 15 minutes for one Bingo Game

Materials

• Bingo cards
• Caller's resources

Safety

• No specific safety precautions need to be observed for this activity.

Teacher Notes

• This activity was highlighted as the ChemFun section of the May 2020 issue of Chemistry Solutions.
• The game was designed to give students practice connecting element names and symbols. It could also be used as a formative assessment.
• This game includes 80 element names and symbols. These elements were left out: 57–71, 89-103, and 109-118. An alphabetical list is included in the Caller’s Resources.
• The Caller’s Resources include a list of all element names and symbols and should be used to mark off the elements as they are called. You will need one copy of this list for each game that you plan. There is also a set of Bingo “chips” that each include one element name. Cut up the “chips”, put them in a large beaker and shake well before you start pulling chips.
• There are 32 unique Bingo cards to download, four sets with eight cards each. To use the cards with several classes, print on cardstock or laminate them. Have students cover their elements with pennies or small chips.
• The cards were generated from Bingo Baker.