Atoms Interactive
Middle School • Interactive Learning with Simulations
📚 Course Contents
⚛️ What Are Atoms?
Discover the tiny building blocks of everything around us
🧠 Prerequisites
Students know that everything around us is made of something, and understand the concept of "building blocks" like LEGO.
📘 Concept
Atoms are the tiny building blocks that make up everything in the universe! Just like LEGO blocks can build amazing structures, atoms combine to build everything you see - your pencil, the air you breathe, even you!
🔬 Let's Break It Down:
An atom is the fundamental, basic building block of matter.
Think of atoms like tiny LEGO blocks that make everything!
What is matter? Anything that has mass and takes up space.
Rock
Water
Air
Phone
TreeWhere Does the Word "Atom" Come From?
The word "atom" comes from the ancient Greek word atomos, which means "indivisible" or "cannot be cut."
Ancient Greek philosophers like Democritus (around 400 BCE) believed that if you kept cutting matter into smaller and smaller pieces, you would eventually reach the smallest possible piece that could not be divided further.
Modern Discovery: We now know that atoms are actually made of even smaller subatomic particles! So the ancient Greeks were close, but not quite right.
💡 While the term "atom" comes from the ancient Greek word atomos, meaning "indivisible," we now know that an atom is composed of even smaller subatomic particles!
What is mass? Mass is the amount of matter in an object. It tells you how much stuff (atoms) an object contains and how heavy each atom is.
✋ Try This! — "Atom Building Blocks"
🧱 LEGO Blocks
Individual blocks
⚛️ Atoms
Individual atoms
🏰 What They Build
Amazing structures!
🔍 Atom Hunt Game
Click on things around you that are made of atoms:
🎉 Amazing Atom Facts
🎯 Learning Outcome
Atoms are the tiny building blocks that make up everything in the universe.
Question to Ponder
Does air occupy space and have mass?
Balloon getting inflated with air
Space:
When you blow up a balloon, what makes it expand? Air fills the space inside, proving air occupies space!
Mass:
Compare the weight of an empty balloon vs. a filled one. The filled balloon weighs more because air has mass!
💡 Think about it: If air is made of atoms, and atoms have mass and take up space, then air must also have mass and take up space!
🔬 Try This Simple Experiment:
- Take two identical balloons
- Keep one empty, blow air into the other
- Notice how the inflated balloon takes up more space
- Feel the difference in weight (very slight but real!)
This proves that air, made of tiny atoms, definitely has both mass and volume!