The Elements: A Visual Exploration is an interactive app designed to help kids learn more about the elements on the periodic table. It is based on the internationally best-selling hard cover edition of The Elements by Theodore Gray, Popular Science Magazine’s Gray Matter columnist. But the app provides a lot more than a print book can offer. It is a pricy app at $13.99, but if you are ever interested in chemistry, this is totally worth it.
Here is part of the introduction from the app store:“You start off at a living periodic table where every element is shown with a smoothly rotating sample. To read about tin, tap the tin soldier. To read about gold, tap the gold nugget. Immediately you see the sample filling nearly the entire screen, photographed to razor sharpness and rotating around a complete circle in front of your eyes. Beside that is a column of facts and figures, each of which can be tapped to bring up rich detail and current information through the embedded Wolfram|Alpha computational knowledge engine.” For example, if you are on the page for Gold, and you tap on Density on the right column, you will see a pop up window showing density of Gold and nearby elements sorted by their density levels.
Each element has two pages. If you tab on the little forward arrow at the bottom right corner, you will see the 2nd page of the element. You will find more fascinating facts about the element, like Mercury accumulates in large, fatty marine animals, like tuna; A diamond is forever, unless you heat it too much, in which case it burns up into carbon dioxide gas. All facts are accompanied by carefully photographed objects representing it. Every one of these objects is a freely rotatable, live object that you can examine from all sides and pinch zoom to see in great detail. There is an option to see the object in 3D, but you need a pair of 3D glasses. There are over 500 images like these in the app.
One thing I have not mentioned, but is the first thing you will get if it is your first time open the app – the classic Tom Lehrer’s Elements song. While Lehrer sings through the periodic table (with the elements known in 1959), kids will enjoy watching the spinning images of each sung element. You can watch / hear the song anytime by tapping on the Song button at the bottom of the home screen.
