Cell Unit Study - Week 2 - Atoms

Week 2: We built atoms out of gumdrops, marshmallows and toothpicks.

Did you know that out of the 92 elements which exist naturally, the gross majority of our bodies are made up of only four? Hydrogen, Carbon, Nitrogen and Oxygen.

Welcome to week 2 of our cell unit study. We are following the book The Way We Work by David Macaulay to learn about cells. Since cells are constructed from atoms that's where our study begins. It takes around 100 trillion atoms to make a cell and around 100 trillion cells to make a human....... Atoms are very small! 

The nucleus of atoms are filled with protons and neutrons while the electrons fly around the nucleus. We began with this simple sketch of the four main types of atoms found in humans. The sketch also served as a direction sheet for building our atoms.

The sketch of hydrogen on the right, shows the nucleus with one electron. We used red gumdrops to represent hydrogen's nucleus, a blue toothpick to represent the first ring of electrons, and a marshmallow for the electron.

Carbon contains six electrons. Two fill the first ring connected to the orange carbon nucleus with blue toothpicks, and the remaining four in the second ring are connected to the nucleus with orange toothpicks.

The same pattern was followed with Nitrogen and Oxygen.

Here are the raw materials.

Red gumdrops = Hydrogen nucleus

Orange gumdrops = Carbon nucleus

Purple gumdrops = Oxygen nucleus

Green gumdrops = Nitrogen nucleus

Marshmallows = Electrons

Blue toothpicks = First ring of electrons

Orange toothpicks = Second ring of electrons

 A nitrogen atom being built.

Completed nitrogen atoms.

Here you can find our other cell and science activities.

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