Nitrogen atom

An interactive lab where students assemble their own nitrogen atom given only the number of electrons.

This lesson is a part of MEL VR Science Simulations. Learn more →

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Transcript

Teacher's notes

Key­words

ni­tro­gen, atom, nu­cle­us, pro­ton, neu­tron, iso­tope, elec­tron, elec­tron or­bital, elec­tron con­fig­u­ra­tion di­a­gram, s-or­bital, p-or­bital

Stu­dents will

  • Build a ni­tro­gen atom know­ing only the num­ber of elec­trons
  • Re­view elec­troneu­tral­i­ty and cal­cu­late how many pro­tons a ni­tro­gen atom has
  • Make an ed­u­cat­ed guess about how many neu­trons a ni­tro­gen atom might have
  • Re­view elec­tron or­bital names, shapes, and or­der of ap­pear­ance
  • Re­view elec­tron con­fig­u­ra­tion di­a­grams

The lab serves pri­mar­i­ly as a skill builder for elec­tron con­fig­u­ra­tion. It can be used in a va­ri­ety of top­ics through­out the cur­ricu­lum: pe­ri­od­ic­i­ty and prop­er­ties, co­va­lent bond­ing (triple bond in ni­tro­gen mol­e­cule), in­tro­duc­tion and ba­sic con­cepts in or­gan­ic chem­istry (amines and their struc­ture).

Top­ics to dis­cuss

  • Ni­tro­gen in the Earth's at­mos­phere