In this activity students explore the structure and properties of atoms. They construct models of atoms with properties of particular mass and charge; create models of atoms with different stabilities by adding or subtracting neutrons, protons, and electrons to a model atom; and determine that the same element may have varying number of neutrons and these form isotopes.

Students will be able to:

Explore the probabilistic electron orbital model to help explain where electrons are most likely to be found.
Explain that all atoms have similar structure, differing only in the number of protons, neutrons, and electrons.
Build models of atoms and ions and identify patterns in numbers of protons and neutrons in stable nuclei and ions.
Describe simple patterns in the periodic table.

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