The following links offer some useful revision to support your learning:
BBC Bitesize – Atomic Structure
BBC Bitesize Video – Atomic Structure
West OS – Atomic Structure Pt 1
West OS – Atomic Structure Pt 2
West OS – Atomic Structure Pt 3
To help with your learning, you may also wish to try some of the following resources:
Within the National 5 Chemistry course, you will need to know:
Periodic Table and atoms
- Elements in the Periodic Table are arranged in order of increasing atomic number.
- The Periodic Table can be used to determine whether an element is a metal or non-metal.
- Groups are columns in the Periodic Table containing elements with the same number of outer electrons, indicated by the group number.
- Elements within a group share the same valency and have similar chemical properties because they have the same number of electrons in their outer energy levels.
- The electron arrangement of the first 20 elements can be written.
- An atom has a nucleus, containing protons and neutrons, and electrons that orbit the nucleus.
- Protons have a charge of one-positive, neutrons are neutral and electrons have a charge of one-negative.
- Protons and neutrons have an approximate mass of one atomic mass unit and electrons, in comparison, have virtually no mass.
- The number of protons in an atom is given by the atomic number.
- In a neutral atom the number of electrons is equal to the number of protons.
Chemical changes and structure
- The mass number of an atom is equal to the number of protons added to the number of neutrons.
- Isotopes are defined as atoms with the same atomic number but different mass numbers, or as atoms with the same number of protons but different numbers of neutrons.
- Nuclide notation is used to show the atomic number, mass number (and charge) of atoms (ions) from which the number of protons, electrons and neutrons can be determined.
- Most elements have two or more isotopes.
- The average atomic mass has been calculated for each element using the mass and proportion of each isotope present. These values are known as relative atomic masses.
