Element 113 was discovered in Japan, so I incorporated Nihon in its name, meaning Japan in Japanese. Artistic elements in this design are drawn from Japanese aesthetics, such as the Japanese mountainous scenery and architecture, zen garden and wabi-sabi. Wabi-sabi is an aesthetic based on the philosophy that embraces the imperfect, such as the broken vase displaying the elemental number, mended with lacquer. The art of mending broken pottery is called kintsugi. The rings of the zen garden in the background also symbolize the numerous orbitals of this element.
Thornlea Secondary School, Thornhill, Ontario
Artist: Angel Sun
Teacher: Dr. Tharsini Manivannan
Nihonium was discovered in Japan. It is the first element to be discovered in Asia. To showcase this, we made our tile the Japanese flag. Since the name of nihonium translates to "land of the rising sun" in English, we made the red circle of the flag a sunrise. Along with this we added a radioactive sign to the top left of the tile. This is because nihonium is highly radioactive. Finally, we added cherry blossom trees to the bottom of our tile to represent more of the Japanese culture.
Greater Latrobe Senior High School, Latrobe, Pennsylvania, USA
Artists: Sydney Green, Sarah Seremet, Camryn Kinkead, Lauren Willner
Teacher: Rachel Suter
This tile is my interpretation of the new element nihonium, an element discovered in Japan. The atomic number and symbol are a vibrant red. In the extra space, different Japanese cultural elements were added, such as a sushi platter, Mount Fuji (a mountain located on Honshu island), an origami design and the Kintai Bridge (a historic arch bridge built in 1673). Lastly, I included cherry blossoms and wrote the word “Japan” in Japanese lettering.
Marshall McLuhan Catholic Secondary School, Toronto, Ontario
Artist: Angelica Wing Martins
Teacher: Franca Mazze
This element name is inspired by the word Nihon, which is one way to say Japan in Japanese and means "the land of the rising sun.” Consequently, I designed a symmetrical reflection of the Sun rising from land as my background. Nihonium was first synthesized in Japan, so I coloured the Sun a reddish-pink hue to represent the Japanese flag. I also designed an Erlenmeyer flask spewing out the Sun to represent that Nihonium is synthetic and can only be found and created in a laboratory. Additionally, I added the three petals and circle (the Sun) from the radioactive symbol to express that Nihonium is radioactive.
Brantford Collegiate Institute, Brantford, Ontario
Artist: David Pugh
Teacher: Adrienne Tugman
