Exciting news! We have expanded the Timeline of Elements project — so there is an opportunity to be a part of this international collaboration to celebrate 2019 International Year of the Periodic Table.
We were determined to find a way to include more schools in our project. With one important aspect missing from our Timeline of Elements — Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev — we came up with a solution. With the help of students, educators and chemical enthusiasts from around the world, we will create a Mendeleev mosaic as a companion piece to our Timeline of Elements.
We are asking you to get your students, as well as any chemistry enthusiasts, to create an image of Mendeleev. The goal is to create unique and inspiring portraits in a variety of styles, colour and artistic expression. (Although we prefer artwork to be an 8 by 8 inch hexagon, we can electronically resize your submissions; as well as we can place square canvasses onto a black or white hexagon.)
We plan to collect as many original Mendeleev artworks as possible and put them together to form a mosaic of the man himself. (No idea what we’re on about? Look here for a similar project: http://blogs.nature.com/thescepticalchymist/2011/08/marie_mosaic.html). As inspiration, read about the Marie mosaic on the September 2011 front cover of Nature Chemistry. After deciding to do this mosaic, we discovered the Marie Curie mosaic online — made of images of women in science. This is worth a visit.
If you plan to submit portraits of Mendeleev, please sign up at the website. You are not making a commitment but just showing your intention and interest in having students participate. It helps us with our planning and promotion. We will be sending you updates as well as showcasing some of the early submissions for you to share with your students.
When you do submit, just simply scan or photograph your images.
Be creative! Try to have students incorporate chemistry and the periodic table into their depictions — maybe you can use chemistry (electroplating, crystals, pH paper…) to create his image. Ask your art department to help — all are welcome. The more images, the better. We will put these together to form a mosaic, so we need as many Mendeleev images as possible. The limiting factor will be how long it takes you to scan in the images. We plan to use all the depictions we receive.
To submit, you will need to provide
- your name, school/institution,
- school address
- and scanned or photograph image(s) at 400 dpi.
The deadline is March 1, 2019 but we plan to share depictions as they come in to inspire others. The earlier you send in artwork, the better!
Go to the Mendeleev Mosaic website to find out more and let us know your students are interested!
