Student contest

One of our winning entries.... (Click here to hear an audio sample [requires RealPlayer].)

Chemistry Stew

ETHS ChemPhyz (Shira, Debi, Julia, Brian, Allison)
from Evanston Township High School, Evanston, IL

We are sophmores at ETHS. We listen to chemistry songs for each unit in class, and thought it would be interesting to write our own.

Chemistry Stew
(tune: Theme song of Beverly Hillbillies)

Listen to the story bout a man named Mendeleev
Who thought about the elements at night while in his bed.
He thought to himself "Gee I don't have clue!
This looks to me like chemistry stew!"

So Dmitri made a plan to organize a table
And arrange all the elements according to their label.
But where do I put them?" cried Dmitri!!
"Properties relate to mass.?.Oh I see!"

Instrumental Interlude

It turned out that this system would work out just perfectly.
The table could predict electronegativity.
Melting points and boiling points were periodic trends.
Atomic radii decreased from end to end.

Left to right that is!

Halogens and noble gases line up face to face
And metalloids form an invisible staircase.
Far on the other side are Alkalines and Earths,
Transitions in the middle, take up the widest girth.

On the table that is.

Mendeleev sat down upon his favorite stool
And realized his chart could be a universal tool
The table would be used for stoichiometry
And to make predictions about energy

Instrumental Interlude

But not all the scientists were pleased with his idea.
They said "Crazy Dmitri, you get out of here!"
Scientists like Newland thought that Mendeleev was wrong
And that his theory would be disproved before too long.

The ultimate proof that Dmitri won the fight
Were his predictions of the elements not yet in sight.
All the scientist cried "you're our periodic knight!
Because Mendeleev...you were right!"