Which condition did you change?
Labs / Chemistry
Electron Shells
Every element is just a nucleus with electrons stacked into shells. Drag across the atom or slide the atomic number from hydrogen up to calcium, and watch each shell fill by the 2, 8, 8 rule. The glowing outer electrons are the valence electrons — the ones that do all the bonding.
Labs / Chemistry / Electron Shells
Electron Shells
Every element is just a nucleus with electrons stacked into shells. Drag across the atom or slide the atomic number from hydrogen up to calcium, and watch each shell fill by the 2, 8, 8 rule. The glowing outer electrons are the valence electrons — the ones that do all the bonding.
Why it matters
Why explore this?
Chemistry connects events too small to see with changes we can measure. This model helps you link particles, energy, and conditions to an observable result.
Explore
Try the model
Element Sodium (Na)Config 2, 8, 1Valence 1
Investigate
Questions to test
Predict first, try it in the model, then use what you observe to answer.
What to try
- Which elements end up with a completely full outer shell, and why might those be the ones that almost never react?
- Sodium has 1 valence electron and chlorine has 7 — what does that hint about why they snap together into salt?
- As you climb from Z = 1 to Z = 20, does the valence count keep rising, or does it reset? What pattern do you notice?
- Why does the third shell stop at 8 here and hand the next electron to a brand-new fourth shell?
- Two elements can share the same valence count — can you find a pair, and would you expect them to behave alike?
Explain
Make sense of what happened
Describe what happened at the particle or energy level, then connect it to the result you saw. A strong explanation names both the cause and the evidence.
Check
Before you leave
What happened to the particles or energy?
What observation supports your explanation?
If you can answer all three using evidence from the model, you understand the main idea. If not, return to Explore and change one setting at a time.