Transitioning

Let's start off by telling you that there are a lot of elements that are considered transition metals. Which metals are the transition metals?
21 (Scandium) through 29 (Copper)
39 (Yttrium) through 47 (Silver)
57 (Lanthanum) through 79 (Gold)
89 (Actinium) and all higher numbers.

What Makes Them So Special?

It all has to do with their shells/orbitals. We like introducing students to the first eighteen elements, because they are easier to explain. Transition metals are good examples of advanced shell and orbital ideas. They have a lot of electrons and distribute them in different ways. You will usually find that transition metals are shiny, too. Not all of them, but we are sure you've seen pictures of silver (Ag), gold (Au), and platinum (Pt).

Transition metals are able to put more than eight electrons in the shell that ... Read more »

Metal Basics

We wanted to give you a big overview of metals before we get into details about specific families. Almost 75% of all elements are classified as metals. They are not all like silver (Ag), gold (Au), or platinum (Pt). Those are the very cool and shiny ones. There are other metals like potassium (K) and iridium (Ir) that you might not think about right away.

Many Kinds of Metals

How many kinds of metals are there? So many. Don't even try to memorize them all. Just remember the ones you might need in class. Here's a quick list: Actinide Metals, Lanthanide Metals, Alkali Metals, Alkaline-Earth Metals, Rare Metals, Rare-Earth Metals, and Transition Metals. Remember, that's the easy list. Lucky for you, the periodic table is excellent at organizing elements, and you will find each of these groups in specific areas of the periodic table.

How Do You Identify a Metal?

What are the characteristics of metals? We've got four ... Read more »

The Noble Gases

We love the noble gases. Some scientists used to call them the inert gases. It didn't really work because there are a few other gases that are basically inert but not noble gases. Nitrogen (N₂) might be considered an inert gas, but it is not a noble gas. The noble gases are another family of elements, and all of them are located in the far right column of the periodic table. For all of you budding chemists, the far right is also known as Group Zero (Group 0) or Group Eighteen (Group XVIII). This family has the happiest elements of all.

Why Are They Happy?

Using the Bohr description of electron shells, happy atoms have full shells. All of the noble gases have full outer shells with eight electrons. Oh, wait! That's not totally correct. At the top of the noble gases is little helium (He), with a shell that is full with only two electrons. The fact that their outer shells are full means they are quite happy and don't need to react with other elements. In fact ... Read more »

Elements as Building Blocks

As you probably saw, the periodic table is organized like a big grid. The elements are placed in specific locations because of the way they look and act. If you have ever looked at a grid, you know that there are rows (left to right) and columns (up and down). The periodic table has rows and columns, and they each mean something different.

You've got Your Periods...

Even though they skip some squares in between, all of the rows go left to right. When you look at a periodic table, each of the rows is considered to be a different period (Get it? Like PERIODic table.). In the periodic table, elements have something in common if they are in the same row. All of the elements in a period have the same number of atomic orbitals. Every element in the top row (the first period) has one orbital for its electrons. All of the elements in the second row (the second period) have two orbitals for their electrons. It goes down the periodic table like that. At this time, the maximum number of electron orbitals or electron shells for any el ... Read more »

Compound Basics

Compounds are groups of two or more elements that are bonded together. You have also seen us use the word molecule. Molecule is the general term used to describe atoms connected by chemical bonds. Every combination of atoms is a molecule. Compounds happen with atoms from different elements. So, all compounds are molecules, because they have bonds between the atoms, like in water (H₂O). However, not all molecules are compounds because sometimes the atoms are of the same element. Hydrogen gas (H₂) is a good example of a molecule that is not a compound. There are two main types of chemical bond that hold atoms together: covalent and electrovalent/ionic bonds. Covalent compounds happen when the atoms share the electrons, and ionic compounds happen when electrons are donated from one atom to another.

We talked about compounds and molecules in the ... Read more »