The University of Nottingham’s Periodic Table of Videos is a genius idea – one that I wish I had come up with myself. I’d really like to recommend the site to teachers because short videos of those elements you can’t show in class would be incredibly useful. Unfortunately, due to the varying quality of the videos, the site fails to live up to its potential. The idea of inter-cutting footage of demonstrations with a scientist talking about the element just doesn’t work in a lot of the videos; I would have preferred the two aspects to be separated. I have some other problems with the videos and the website, but I’m reluctant to write about them here because I like the idea so much that I just feel mean ripping it apart. I know a couple of chemists who virtually froth at the mouth with anger when talking about this site – I totally understand their frustration with it.