Lazy shoelike electrons like to play monopoly!

Day 110: We learn about electron configuration. Mr. Bender gave us three words to simplify it. Lazy, shoes, and monopoly.

Lazy:

Electrons are "lazy", they like to stay at the lowest energy level possible. That means they won't be skipping any energy levels, or skip an energy level where there is only one electron. They stay as low as possible!

Shoes:

Electrons are like shoes, they come in pairs. In each level, there is a maximum is two electrons. When the energy level is filled with two electrons, the electrons have opposite spins and are denoted by up arrows and down arrows.

Monopoly:

Electrons like to "play monopoly". It is always singles first! They only pair up when necessary.

The first level is 1s, and includes Hydrogen and Helium and the second level is 2s. These are both spherical. The third level is 2p, and 2p has three different orbitals. 2Px, 2Py, and 2Pz. 3d, the fifth level, had five different orbitals.

To help us understand, Mr. Bender showed us an oh so wonderful video from the World of Chemistry where Don is a coach for the Electron Team Baseball. He showed us how electron configurations worked physically, using benches and baseball players to act as levels and electrons.

A rather simple and easy concept, compared to some of the pretty complicated things we learned this unit!