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In teaching Chemistry, students are presented with memorizing the Metals Activity Series. This a list of metals in order of their reactivity. The ones at the top, like lithium and potassium are highly reactive, whereas the ones near the bottom, like gold and platinum, are only weakly reactive. In the past, I wrote a similar blog, but now I add some visual information to make the mnemonic stick in the students’ minds.
Why is the Metals Activity Series important? One of the most difficult problems chemists face is predicting reactions. Will two things react and, if so, what will be the product(s)? Centuries ago, alchemists sought to turn lead into gold. They were not successful, but in attempting a solution they discovered that certain metals were more reactive than others. Over the years, this information was put into a table. I include my version here.
Carbon and hydrogen are not metals, of course, but I add them because they are reference elements and occur in thousands of compounds.
Now, how in the world does a student memorize this list? Without help, no student will remember more than one or two for any length of time.
So, you devise a clever device, in this case a mnemonic, and then remember all of them, for years. I searched and found several mnemonics, but most were for a shortened form of the table. I combined some of the ideas I found with my own and came up with a mnemonic that works as a good memory aid. I would credit all those with contributing material, but have no way of establishing original authorship.
The difficulty with a chemical mnemonic is, “Do you use the name, gold, or the atomic symbol for gold, Au?” “Do you use the name, sodium, or the atomic symbol, Na?” I decided that my mnemonic would combine them to keep it short and sensible. Here it is:
Little Kathy Bakes Cakes. Nasty Maggie Aligns Carbon Zebras INTo Lead–Hard Cages Monkey Security Guards Patrol.
In practice, this mnemonic works well because the logic connects.
Here are the visuals I use to teach the idea:
