Atoms and Elements

Learning Objective
To understand the difference between atoms and elements.

Success Criteria
• To state what an atom and element are.
• To describe the Dalton atomic model.
• To identify elements on the periodic table.
What Do You Think?
What is the smallest thing you can see?

What is the smallest thing you know about?

animal
cell

virus
water bacterial
molecule cell plant
cell
DNA
atom
grain of
salt

0.1nm 1nm 10nm 100nm 1μm 10μm 100μm 1mm

The Smallest Piece of Matter
Cut your strip of paper in half. Each half of the
paper has the same properties as the original
strip.

Take one of the halves, and cut it in half again.

How many times are you able to cut the paper
in half before it is too small to cut anymore?

In 442BC, Democritus reasoned that if you continued to do this with a stone, eventually
you would reach the point that the stone was so tiny it could no longer be divided.

He named these tiny pieces of matter atomos which is Greek for ‘indivisible’ (can’t be
divided any further).
The Smallest Piece of Matter
If you had the technology to do it, how many times do you think you would have to cut
your strip of paper in half before you reached the point it could no longer be divided?

31!

After 31 cuts your paper would be 1 × 10 -10 metres (that’s 0.0000000001 metres!).

This is the radius of one atom, the modern word derived from Democritus’ atomos.

An atom is so small that you could fit 7 million of them into the thickness of a crisp.
Atoms
It wasn’t until 1803 that John Dalton formed
the atomic theory of matter.

• He imagined atoms to be tiny spheres.

• He thought that all matter was made of

atoms.

• He thought that atoms could not be

created, destroyed, or broken down into
anything else (although we now know
that this isn’t the case).

Atom: The smallest part of an

element that can exist.
 Elements
An element is a substance that cannot be broken down into other substances.

There are 92 naturally occurring elements. Gold and oxygen are examples of naturally
occurring elements.

Dalton thought that:

• All atoms of the same element were identical (we now know it’s not quite this
simple!)
• Different elements have different types of atoms.

Element: A substance made of only

one type of atom.
 Atoms and Elements
In the diagrams below, each circle represents one atom of that element.

The element gold is made of only gold atoms.

One atom of gold is the smallest amount of gold you can get.

The element sodium is made of only sodium atoms.

One atom of sodium is the smallest amount of sodium you can get.

The element iron is made of only iron atoms.

One atom of iron is the smallest amount of iron you can get.
 Elements and The Particle Model
How would the particles be organised in each of the states below?

solid liquid gas

Elements and The Particle Model

solid gold liquid gold gaseous gold

solid iron liquid iron gaseous iron

 Elements and The Particle Model
One atom alone does not have the properties of the element.

solid gold liquid gold gaseous gold

One atom of gold is not shiny or golden. Only a group of atoms together will look like
gold.

One atom of gold is not a solid, a liquid or a gas.

Only a group of atoms together can melt or boil.
The Periodic Table
In the previous activity, you grouped the elements based on their properties.

Grouping elements in this way helps scientists identify trends in the elements and
understand which elements behave in similar ways.

As of November 2020, scientists had identified 118 elements. These elements are
organised by their properties in the periodic table.
 Chemical Symbols
Each element is represented by a symbol.

The symbol comes from the first letter or letters of its name. For elements discovered
early on, the symbol usually comes from its Latin or Greek name. For example the
symbol for sodium is Na, which comes from the Latin ‘natrium’.

symbol

The first letter of the symbol is always capitalised. Any following letters are lower case.

The symbol for each element can be found on the periodic table.
The Periodic Table
Group 1 Group 2 Group 7 Group 0
Lithium (Li) Beryllium (Be) Fluorine (F) Helium (He)
Sodium (Na) Magnesium (Mg) Chlorine (Cl) Neon (Ne)
Potassium (K) Calcium (Ca) Bromine (Br) Argon (Ar)
Rubidium (Rb) Strontium (Sr) Astatine (At) Krypton (Kr)
Xenon (Xe)
The Periodic Table
A column in the periodic table is called a group.

The groups are numbered along the top, from Group 1 to Group 7, with Group 0 on
the end.

The middle section is not included in this group system because the elements here
behave differently to those in the labelled groups.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 0
The Periodic Table
The elements in the same group all have similar properties.
Group 1 Group 2 Group 7 Group 0
• solids at room • solids at room • very reactive • gases at room
temperature temperature • non-metals temperature
• very reactive • very reactive (but less • unreactive
• metals reactive than Group 1) • non-metals
• metals
The Periodic Table
A row in the periodic table is called a period.

There are seven periods in the periodic table.

atomic
The atomic number increases as you move from number
left to right across a period.
increasing atomic number

1
2
3
4
5
The elements in the lanthanide series and actinide
6 series belong to periods 6 and 7. They are positioned
7 underneath the rest of the periodic table.
Sorting Elements
Elements can be sorted into groups based on their properties.

Sort the cards into two groups.

There are many ways you can do this so be prepared to explain
which properties you used to sort them.
Metals and Non-Metals
sodium neon

gold carbon

calcium sulfur

copper helium

iron nitrogen

What are the properties of a metal?

 Metals and Non-Metals
What do you notice about where the elements are positioned in the
periodic table?
 Metals and Non-Metals
What do you notice about where the elements are positioned in the
periodic table?
 Metals and Non-Metals
Metals are found on the left of the stepped line and non-metals on the right.

Draw the line on your periodic table and label the metals and non-metals.

metals Hydrogen is a non-metals

non-metal
but it is often
put in the
middle.
 Metals and Non-Metals
All metals, apart from mercury, are solids at room temperature. What does this tell
you about their melting points?
Metals have high melting points.
Many non-metals have low boiling points so are gases at room temperature.

State at room
temperature: solid liquid gas
 Metals and Non-Metals
Can you tell whether an element is a metal or non-metal from its state at
room temperature?
If an element is a gas at room temperature, we know it is a non-metal.
If it is a liquid or a solid, it could be a metal or a non-metal.

State at room
temperature: solid liquid gas
 Homework Instructions
You have been given the first paragraph of a story but it is incomplete. You need to use
the periodic table to work out the missing words.

The number underneath each gap represents a sequence of elements in the key below.

Replace the name of the elements in the sequence with their symbol to spell a word.

HAt
Dalton was wearing a ___________.

1: hydrogen, astatine
 Elements Storytelling
gasp How
When she opened her eyes, she let out a _____________. ___________ did she get here? Her
1 2
brain chocolate
_______________ was as much use as a _________________ teapot. But this was no time for a
3 4
thermodynamics Luna think
lesson in ______________________________. Come on, _______________, ______________! The
5 6 7
motion sickness
room was spinning; _______________ _________________ was setting in. She needed air. She
8 9
barf
scrambled to her feet, trying not to _______________. If she could just get to the
10
psychic unicorns
________________ __________________, she was sure they would have some answers.
11 12
 Elements - Factsheets
Go around the classroom and complete the table about Elements.

Record: The atomic symbol

Melting and boiling point
State of matter at room temperature
The use.
 Atoms and Elements
Use the words in the box below to write a definition for each of the key words from this
lesson.

Atom: The smallest part of an element that can exist.

Element: A substance made of only one type of atom.

part of made type The exist .

atom A can smallest of only an
substance element one of that .