MathScience Innovation Center 2010
Misbehaving Molecules—Atoms Alive
Mrs. Hobbs
MathScience Innovation Center
MathScience Innovation Center 2010
What is going on with those molecules?
Are they behaving badly or just doing what molecules do?
Let’s investigate.
MathScience Innovation Center 2010
Water--our first molecule
We will use two teams to do our water investigation. Each team needs three students.
MathScience Innovation Center 2010
Water Investigation
Investigators:
find a cup and fill it half full of water
then add your materials
MathScience Innovation Center 2010
Add these materials:
a
aa
a
aa
a
aa
Cup 1 three drops of oil Stir 10 times
Cup 2 one small scoop of salt
Stir 10 times
Cup 3 one ice cube
Stir 10 times
MathScience Innovation Center 2010
What happened?
Cup 1
The oil sits on top of the water and will not mix with it.
Cup 2
The salt mixes with the water and disappears.
Cup 3
The ice cube floats on top of the water.
MathScience Innovation Center 2010
Were those molecules misbehaving?
Why won’t the water mix with the oil?
Can’t they be friends?
MathScience Innovation Center 2010
What happened?
• Why does the salt disappear?
• Is it like a ghost? Can we make come back? How?
MathScience Innovation Center 2010
Are the molecules misbehaving?
Why doesn’t the ice sink?
Solids are supposed to be denser than liquids.
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What do the new materials do?Sample # What do you think it will do in
water?What happened?
Why?
1
2
3 You may stir it.
4
5
You may fold it.
MathScience Innovation Center 2010
Sample # What do you think it will do in water?
What happened? Why?
1 It mixed with water and made it a bit green.
It dissolves—it is more like water than oil.
2 It settled to the bottom and made a sludge.
It dissolves—it is more like water than oil.
3 You may stir it.
It settles to the bottom and then dissolves.
It disappears like salt but does not look like
salt.
4 It goes straight to the bottom. It is a solid with high density.
5 You may fold it.
It floats until it is folded very small. At first it floats because it is flat but then sinks.
What do the new materials do?
MathScience Innovation Center 2010
Molecules come big and small
This molecule is monatomic.
This molecule is
diatomic.
MathScience Innovation Center 2010
What shape are molecules?
Some are linear
Some are bent
Some are planar and trigonal
Some are pyramidal
Some are tetrahedral
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Reacting Molecules
Element molecule Element molecule
Compound molecules
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Click on the white board to drop a molecule and then drag to add more parts.
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Now you try it– make this structure.
CH3
CH3
Every point has a carbon so we have 6 carbon atoms.
MathScience Innovation Center 2010
If you want to name your new structure:
Click on this icon at the upper right of the screen.
MathScience Innovation Center 2010
What does that name mean?
hex means 6 carbons like a hexagon has six sides
ane means that it has all single bonds
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Click on the icon at the top right
to make 3 dimensional pictures
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Click “Tools”, “Auto Add Frames”
You can make your own molecule movie.
MathScience Innovation Center 2010
Once completed these images can be copied and pasted to documents
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Draw one water molecule Click on oxygen and drop it on your white
board.
Now make it 3 dimensional.
Draw it on your chart in the place for H_ O_
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What does water look like?
1. H-O-H
2. O-H-H
3. Or something else?
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Molecule Formulas Chart
Make each molecule on your chart and then draw it.
Once you have finished identify the shapes of each one.
Then create molecules of your choice and draw them too.
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Chart 2 Everyday Molecules
For those who finish early there are more molecules to draw.
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Back to water
We know its formula.
What else do we know from our experiment?
What did it do with oil?
What did it do with salt?
What did it do with ice?
MathScience Innovation Center 2010
Water and Oil
Let’s try out some models.
What shape is the water?
MathScience Innovation Center 2010
Water and Salt
How do the water molecules act towards each other?
What does that tell us?
MathScience Innovation Center 2010
Water and Ice
Put your six models in the box and shake.
What shape do you get?
Why does ice float?
MathScience Innovation Center 2010
What do we know about water• Water molecules have a bent shape.• Molecule shapes and formulas are found
in patterns.• The periodic table helps us to predict
those shapes and formulas.• Ice forms 6 sided clusters.
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