Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Atoms... have you heard of Beanium?

Today students reviewed atoms. Atoms, or elements, are the smallest unit of matter. They retain their identity in chemical reactions and are combined to form compounds and everything in the universe.

Atoms have some basic parts. Protons and Neutrons are found in the nucleus and make up the atomic mass. To find the number of neutrons, you subtract the atomic number (number of protons) from the atomic mass number (protons plus neutrons).

Electrons are so tiny that they do not influence the atomic mass. They are found orbiting the nucleus in shells or orbitals. Atoms are neutral so the number of protons equals the number of electrons.

Student reviewed how to determine this information from the periodic table. Then they got a mystery sample of Beanium. They had to count different colors of beans representing subatomic particles and determine which element they had.

Students finished class working on assignments that are due later in the week.

Tonight's homework is to finish an atom reading. Physical/Chemical lab is due Friday.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

heyy ms.J !
Atoms are pretty cool. The Beanium game, where we counted up our beans to see which element we had really helped me out to understand how to figure out the protons & nuetron. The only hard thing is trying to remember where everything is on P.T. :/
Taylor M :)

Anonymous said...

Taylor~
We are going to go over and over it and you will definitely get it! Playing guess who is one of the easiest and funnest ways to nail it.
MsJ