Atom Book

Hey kids! Today I'm going to introduce you to the world of atoms. Atoms are little things that you or anybody else have ever seen. Make up things like trees, cars, paper, even you. So let's shrink down to size and see what it's like. We're going to into the Helium atom today. An atom is made of little things called protons, nuetrons, and electrons. Protons have a positive charge, neutrons have no charge, and electrons have a negative charge. Electrons travel around the center of the atom, which is called the nucleus. Kind of like how Earth revolves around the sun. Protons and nuetrons make up the center of the atom. The atom has an atomic number. Scientists find that number by counting how many protons are in the nucleus. In this case Helium has two protons. Scientists find the average atomic mass by adding up protons and neutrons many times. Then they divide the total by how many times they tried this. This time Helium has an average of 4 protons and neutrons in the center. The electron arrangement is the number of electrons in each ring or shell. In this case helium has 1 ring with 2 electrons in it. An aatom can have up to only 7 rings. An atomic symbol is the letter(s) that describe the element. Like He means helium, but if you wrote it HE it could mean something totally different so be careful. An isotope has fewer or more neutrons than protons. So there isn't the same number of protons as neutrons. Well now that I'm big again I hope you learned everything you wanted to know about atoms.