Now that we are done with describing matter, let's look at matter at a microscopic level. If I told you that matter was made of up billions of specks too small for the human eye to see, would you believe me? Of course you would! These really tiny particles are known as atoms. So how small are they you ask? Well let's turn to this really awesome video on the atom!
Okay, so let's quickly review:
1. What is all matter composed of?
2. How small is an atom?
3. What does the atom contain?
4. Where does most of the atom's mass come from?
5. What is between the nucleus and the electrons?
How does an atom differ from a molecule?
Atoms are the building blocks of all matter. This means that everything is composed of the atoms currently known to man. Unfortunately we can't just walk up to an atom and look at it because it is to small for the naked eye. However, if we could get our hands on really fancy (and expensive) science equipment we could probably get to see what an atom looks like. Atoms are composed of two main areas: the electron cloud and nucleus. If we zoom even further into the two areas we would come across even smaller particles (subatomic) called protons, electrons, and neutrons. Protons and neutrons are found in the nucleus of the atom while the electrons are moving around the nucleus within the election cloud.
If you recall from last week, elements are formed from the same type of atom. In other words, the hydrogen element is composed of millions of hydrogen atoms. This is why it is a pure substance. (Oh look, another vocabulary word from last week!) When we take two or more elements (of the 118 to choose from) and bond (combine) them together we have molecules. Some molecules like to share electrons while others have more of a give-and-take partnership, but more on that later.
In order to know how many elements are contained in a chemical bond we look to the chemical formula for the answer. The chemical formula is composed of letters and numbers that indicate the ratio of elements within a bond. Water or H2O means that there are two hydrogen (H) atoms to one oxygen (O) atom in every water molecule (see image below).
See this image in video by clicking here.
Later this week we are going to do something called Paper Blogging. This video is similar to what we are going to do.
By the way, I came across this e-chapter and thought I would share it with you. It covers many of the topics we've been and will cover.
Other Helpful Resources for this week:
Subatomic Particles (Practice Quiz)
Atomic Structure (Practice Quiz)
The Atom Quiz
