Songium
Way back, but not way way back, in high school I had a certain chemistry teacher. Her name was Lois. She was a little quirky, had great fondness for her students, loved the moment of discovery and used whatever method necessary to explain a concept (or just to have fun). Because science can be fun, right?
I remember how she “sort-of” electrocuted herself with the “teacher-killer” contraption. Was is demonstrating circuits or conductivity of solutions?
I remember how I got a tonne of marks off an experiment because I assumed my thermometer was wrong when the water didn’t boil at 100 degrees centigrade. And recorded my belief rather than my observation.
I remember getting bonus marks on an exam for asking if there were any other states of matter than solid, liquid and gas. Plasma is still a little tough to wrap my head around.
I also remember the period table of the elements song. She actually had a whole cassette tape full of bizarre songs. Perhaps all from Tom Lehrer. Maybe there are other weird and wonderful educational tunes.
Being a closet math and science geek, I was pleased to discover Lehrer also has math songs. Very catchy indeed.
Periodic Table of the Elements Song
Words: Tom Lehrer
Tune: ‘I am the very model of a modern Major-General’ (Gilbert & Sullivan’s ‘Pirates of Penzance’)
There’s antimony, arsenic, aluminum, selenium,
And hydrogen and oxygen and nitrogen and rhenium
And nickel, neodymium, neptunium, germanium,
And iron, americium, ruthenium, uranium,
Europium, zirconium, lutetium, vanadium
And lanthanum and osmium and astatine and radium
And gold, protactinium and indium and gallium
And iodine and thorium and thulium and thallium.
There’s yttrium, ytterbium, actinium, rubidium
And boron, gadolinium, niobium, iridium
And strontium and silicon and silver and samarium,
And bismuth, bromine, lithium, beryllium and barium.
There’s holmium and helium and hafnium and erbium
And phosphorous and francium and fluorine and terbium
And manganese and mercury, molybdinum, magnesium,
Dysprosium and scandium and cerium and cesium
And lead, praseodymium, and platinum, plutonium,
Palladium, promethium, potassium, polonium,
Tantalum, technetium, titanium, tellurium,
And cadmium and calcium and chromium and curium.
There’s sulfur, californium and fermium, berkelium
And also mendelevium, einsteinium and nobelium
And argon, krypton, neon, radon, xenon, zinc and rhodium
And chlorine, carbon, cobalt, copper,
Tungsten, tin and sodium.
These are the only ones of which the news has come to Harvard,
And there may be many others but they haven’t been discovered.
