Every thing you ever wanted to know about atoms

This week we learned a lot about atoms. On Monday we made a replica of an atom out of fruit loops and paper plates. The most challenging part about this was finding the amount of protons, neutrons and electrons contained in my element Oxygen. This activity helped me learn how to calculate the number of protons, neutrons and electrons in each element. We also watched a video that showed an experiment that helped scientists find out that the atoms were not hollow. I thought this experiment was cool and left me wondering how they were so smart to construct such a complex experiment that could determine atoms weren't hollow but that they contained a nucleus in side.

On Tuesday we played with fire. OK, not literally but we did do a pretty cool experiment using it. In the test we did a series of flame tests to determine the color each element would give off when we burned it. The color of the light depends on its energy level of the element. This experiment surprised me because before this lab I thought all fire was the same and couldn't change colors. If you don't believe that fire can change colors  click on the link. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvLP1R9mUqM
I thought is was cool when the elements were on fire and it would change the color when you looked through a piece of cobalt glass. When burned, sodium is usually orange but when looked at through the cobalt glass is turns a white color.

On Wednesday, we finished burning the chemicals. This time we had two mystery chemicals that we didn't know what they were. We had to determine that by looking at the colors each one gave off. I thought this was cool and found it a little bit challenging. We also retested any chemicals that were not the color they were supposed to be. If you try this experiment, you will need to use distilled water because later we found that the impurities in the tap water affects the color it gives off.
On Thursday we had our quiz. I thought the quiz was hard. I mixed up atomic mass with atomic number. One way I can improve is associate the words with things I know like neutron and neutral.
On Friday we went over our quiz. When we go over our quizzes it helps me improve on the tests.

For Science Olympiad, I also met with my team member's coach and my coach last week and we discussed how to hold the maximum capacity with the least weight for our bridge. I have some ideas about how to do this. We met for one hour.