Atomic Properties / Structure

Ion Chip Challenge: A Brain Break for Chemistry Classrooms

Melissa Hemling | Thu, 07/25/2024 - 21:37

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The Ion Chip Challenge is an interactive brain break game where students play rock-paper-scissors to exchange electron chips, helping them understand ion formation by addressing common misconceptions about positive and negative charges. This engaging activity combines movement and social interaction, making chemistry concepts more accessible and reinforcing that ions are formed through the transfer of electrons, not protons.

Counting Orbitals: Part II

Joseph Lomax | Thu, 07/21/2022 - 17:55

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A continuation of Counting Orbitals I: The 'Ah-ha! Moment' and Quantum Numbers. Sit back and adjust your eyeballs for some colorful graphics.

The Magical Periodic Table and The Element Girls Series

Rajasree Swaminathan | Tue, 04/13/2021 - 08:43

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Rajasree Swaminathan has developed a series of books that combines story-telling and visual representation of the elements as human characters. Along with hands-on activities, these books have created enthusiasm in her chemistry classes.

Chemistry Magnets - Making Chemistry Visible

Doug Ragan | Fri, 08/16/2019 - 22:16

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Doug Ragan been using magnets of elements and subatomic particles for some time to help his students visualize what is happening at the particle level of chemistry. Download the files attached to the post and print out your own set of elements and particles!

Giving Students a Working Model to Explain Interactions Between Matter and Light

Scott Milam | Thu, 10/18/2018 - 22:27

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Light is a challenging topic in chemistry. In this article, I share an outline of how I approach the content related to interactions between matter and light using activities, a simulation, demonstrations and whiteboards.

Early Use of AP Insight with Honors Chemistry: Atomic Mass, Mass Spectrometry, and Dalton's Postulates

Allison Tarvin | Mon, 09/12/2016 - 15:12

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College Board offers an excellent online resource for teachers and students. It's not free, but my school district pays the bill. AP Insight provides curriculum outlines, teaching ideas and resources, student handouts, and digitally-graded assessments.

How a Photon Is Created or Absorbed

Giles Henderson
Eastern Illinois University, Charleston, IL 61920

Robert C. Rittenhouse
Walla Walla College, College Place, WA 99324

John C. Wright and Jon L. Holmes
University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53706

Clarifying Electron Configurations

Dave Doherty | Fri, 04/29/2016 - 13:23

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We’ve all seen and use the so-called Aufbau Diagram. It is a mnemonic used to remember the order of “filling” of atomic orbitals during the construction of the ground state electron configurations of the elements. The presentation of this diagram is largely disconnected from any physical meaning. Here’s what we tell our students: “Memorize the diagram, learn to use it, and you’re guaranteed to get the right answer.”

Conversations, Confessions, Confusions (and hopefully some Clarity) on Electronic Configurations

Tom Kuntzleman | Fri, 04/29/2016 - 10:06

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A complete understanding of why each element has a particular electronic configurations is a very complex subject. Even so, some confusion regarding the electronic configurations of the elements may be alleviated by looking at the physical properties of the electronic orbitals.

The Search for the Final Element

Tom Kuntzleman | Thu, 01/28/2016 - 19:33

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Have you ever wondered what is the theoretically largest possible value for the atomic number of an element? Using some introductory physics and algebra, you can get your students thinking about this idea.