Building Atoms

Your teacher has created a new SMART Board notebook that allows you to build atoms from the bottom up by stacking orbitals. If you are interested in trying it, download the file aufbau.notebook to your computer, and open it with SMART Notebook Express. SMART Notebook Express does not quite have all the functionality needed to expand the images, but keep checking -- their website says they are upgrading it all the time.

If you want to explore the shapes of orbitals, check out the free Orbital Viewer software. It's fun to play with the atom parameters and see all the different shapes the orbitals can take.

Podcasts from the American Chemical Society

The American Chemical Society produces several podcast series of interest to chemistry students. The Global Challenges series highlights the impact of chemistry in dealing with global issues like health, hunger, energy, and the environment. The Science Elements series highlights cutting edge research in chemistry. The Bytesize Science series reports on developments from the American Chemical Society's 36 journals in a form well suited for young people.

Check out these links directly, or refer to the RSS feeds in the margin of this page. Listen to some of the podcasts to find out how fast and how broadly the development of chemistry progresses. It is an exciting field for young people to consider for their life's work.