This Periodic Table illustrates how we interact with each element

If you think back to middle school chemistry, you’ll probably remember trying to memorize the Periodic Table of the Elements. Perhaps the Tom Lehrer song is still ingrained in your head:

I wish my science teachers had showed us a poster like this. Designed by software engineer Keith Enevoldsen and spotted by Mental Floss, “The Periodic Table of Elements, in Pictures” puts the elements in our everyday lives, showing how we regularly interact with them.

Enevoldsen’s graphic packs in a lot of information without overwhelming students (or adults!) with facts and figures that probably aren’t relevant to them, like atomic weights and valence numbers.

“The table is color-coded to show the chemical groupings,” he explains. “Small symbols pack in additional information: solid/liquid/gas, color of element, common in the human body, common in the earth’s crust, magnetic metals, noble metals, radioactive, and rare or never found in nature.”

Here’s a closer look at different parts of the Periodic Table.

If you’ve got a kid or grandkid who loves science, you can order a poster-size version here.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to get a certain song out of my head. “There’s antimony, arsenic, aluminum, selenium, and hydrogen and oxygen and nitrogen and rhenium, and nickel, neodymium, neptunium, germanium, and iron, americium, ruthenium, uranium…”