Objects of Substance- Periodic Table

Interior of the Science laboratory 1933

Central to the new building’s architectural design is the concept of ‘teachable moments’: that the building itself be imbued with references to scientific ideas to invoke wonder and awe in the students. From the central void with staircase pointing true north, to colour schemes that echo the lifecycle of stars, to quotations from some of the world’s pioneering female scientists, there are moments of discovery and learning throughout the space. For generations, the periodic table has been integral to every science classroom in every school around the world, including here at Girls Grammar. Therefore, it seemed appropriate that a periodic table, an elegant, information-packed, physical representation of the properties of natural and synthetic elements, should feature in the School’s new Science Learning Centre. Today, a senior science student with knowledge of the number of protons in the nucleus of an atom and the Aufbau principle of electron configuration could recreate the periodic table, but its existence predates any knowledge of subatomic particles (protons and electrons).

2020: The Girls Grammar Periodic Table

The question, “What is matter made of?” is one that has been asked for millennia: by ancient Greek philosophers Leucippus and Democritus who considered matter consisted of small solid particles that they called atomos , meaning indivisible; to Aristotle who argued that matter could not be