10 Science - Atom crafty project

Hello everyone!

This blog post will be my first science blog post for this year!

Aim: To make a model atom

Recently in our science lesson, we have been focusing on atomic science as our first topic for science. This means we have been learning about atoms, we also have been doing activities. For us to learn the periodic table as it relates to atoms, the reason for this is because...

If you haven't seen a periodic table before here is what one looks like:

I don't know if you can adequately see but in each box or square, there is a letter(s) that represents an element. There are also two numbers in each square, there is one in the top left corner and one under the letter(s). The smaller number which is usually at the top is the atomic number. Which is the number of protons and electrons. The number under the letter(s) is the atomic mass which is the size of the elements. The neutron in an element is the results you get from minusing the atomic number from the mass. 

Wondering how this relates to atoms? Well as I made the words 'protons and electrons' the reason for that. Is because an atom is made of electrons, protons, and neutrons. The structure of an atom is where the protons and neutrons are in the core. Which is called the nucleus and on the outside there are electrons whizzing around.

Now talking about our atom project - 

We needed to create our very own atom using the following supplies - 

• Paper
• Big/small beads
• String
• Blue Tack
• Tape
• Scissors

I will not tell you the instructions but I will explain what each of the supplies was used for. So I guess I am practically still telling you the instruction partly. 

We first needed to pick an element from Hydrogen to Neon, and I chose oxygen. 

For the beads, we stuck the number of beads we needed together using blue tack creating a sphere. The beads needed to be two different colors representing the protons and neutrons. The resulting sphere would be representing the nucleus.

We then needed to cut out two rings in the paper using the scissors, I did this by folding my paper in half vertically; so the long way. I used a pencil to sketch out semi-circles and cut them out. I needed about 2 rings a small one and a bigger one. The rings represented the shell of the atom, the could possibly be 2 - 3 shells on an atom. Everyone needed only two rings as we only needed to pick an element between Hydrogen and Neon. 

Between hydrogen and neon, the number of electrons didn't go past 10, this is because in the shell. The first layer can only fit 2 electrons and both the 2 and 3 shells can only fit 8 electrons. 

After that on the rings, we needed to draw on the appropriate amount of sots/circles to represent the number of electrons. 

We used a string to connect the nucleus and electron shells, and on top, we needed to create a label saying the element and the atomic number, and atomic mass.  

Here is what mine ended up looking like:

It worked nicely with me, I enjoyed doing it as I like to do crafty things. I'm glad Mr. Heath my science teacher decided to mix something creative in our work. Still making it informative and creative. This was also a great way for us to remember our work or test our knowledge about atomic science. 

Here are 2 facts about atomic science!

• Everything is made out of atoms.
• There are three parts to an atom: protons have a positive electrical charge which is found together with neutrons in the nucleus. Around the outside in the shells, that is where the electrons are found which hold negative electrical charges.