The Rhyming Peg Mnemonic Device Applied to Learning the Mohs Scale of Hardness

The rhyming peg mnemonic device, appropriate for learning an ordered set, is used to teach Mohs hardness scale. Students begin by learning the “pegs” – a set of words, each rhyming with a number from one to ten, to which each mineral will be linked. Students then study, interpret, make additional connections with, personalize, and visualize a set of illustrations that associates each mineral with its peg word, number, and attributes. This technique is effective because it is meaningful, helps students organize information, provides many associations, uses the creative thinking skill of visualization of images, and focuses student attention. The following poem contains couplets describing each of the ten mnemonic drawings. See the sweating, slipping sun, Rating talc as number one. Buy a gypsy’s gypsum shoe, Or a scratched-up pair of two. Trim the cave-rock calcite tree, Always branching into three. Shut the bulging fluorite door, That the toothpaste labels “four.” Fear the crossed-bone killer hive With an appetite for five! Orthoclase-tipped music sticks, Beat a rhythm pounding six. Seven jars, all cloudy quartz Hold crystals from heaven’s parts Then a heavy topaz skate, Does a looping figure eight. Sanded off corundum vine, Had red ruby roses nine. But the pecking diamond hen, Gets a perfect score of “10”!