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The Periodic Table

The Periodic Table
Reading Level
     edHelper's suggested reading level:   grades 7 to 8
     Flesch-Kincaid grade level:   7.26

Vocabulary
     challenging words:    Timmothy, neon, atomic, nuclear, eclipse, abbreviation, periodic, radon, element, atom, helium, solar, generally, hydrogen, concentration, zigzag
     content words:    Timmothy Stowe, Professor Theodore, Emil Zmaczynski, Dmitri Mendeleev

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The Periodic Table
By Sharon Fabian 		  
1     People have always tried to organize things. Organizing things helps us to understand them and to see how different things are related. Maybe you have noticed your little brother or sister grouping toys or blocks by their color or size. Ancient people had their own ways of organizing things. The ancient Greeks suggested that everything in the world could be organized into four groups -- earth, wind, fire, and water. Today, scientists generally organize the world into two main groups, matter and energy. These main groups are then organized some more into smaller groups.
 
2     Today we use the periodic table to organize matter. It is a chart that shows all of the basic elements that make up our world organized into rows, called periods, and columns, called groups.
 
3     It took a long time before we came up with this arrangement, though! Scientists tried a lot of arrangements before they came up with one that worked. Dr. Timmothy Stowe created a chart of the elements that was made up of zigzag rows. Professor Theodore Benfey's chart looked like a circle with three big handles. Emil Zmaczynski drew a triangular chart.

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