ATOMS AND

ELEMENTS
CHEMISTRY SCIENCE FAIR PROJECT 7A
Valen, Mathew, Davin ng, Catherine, Sean
WHAT ARE ATOMS AND
ELEMENTS?
 An atom is the smallest unit of matter that has the properties
of an element. It is composed of a dense core called the
nucleus and a series of outer shells occupied by orbiting
electrons.
 A chemical element is a species of atom having the same
number of protons in their atomic nuclei.

Nucleus: The central part of the atom. It contains the protons and neutrons.
 WHO INVENTED THE IDEA OF
ATOMS?
Matter is composed of indivisible building blocks. This idea was
recorded as early as the fifth century BCE by Democritus.
Democritus proposed that different types and combinations of
these particles were responsible for the various forms of matter.
However, these ideas were largely ignored at the time, as most
philosophers favored the Aristotelian perspective.
The concept of the atom was revisited and elaborated upon by
many scientists and philosophers, including Galileo, Newton,
Boyle, and Lavoisier. In 1661, Boyle presented a discussion of
atoms in his the ‘Sceptical Chymist’. However, the English
chemist and meteorologist John Dalton is credited with the first
modern atomic theory, as explained in his ‘A new system of
chemical philosophy’.
 WHAT ARE THE ELEMENTS?
You can find the elements on the periodic
table.
The periodic table is a tabular display of
the chemical elements, which are
arranged by atomic number, electron
configuration, and recurring chemical
properties.
The structure of the table shows periodic
trends. The seven rows of the table,
called periods, generally have metals on
the left and non-metals on the right. The
columns, called groups, contain elements
with similar chemical behaviors.
FACTS OF ATOMS AND
ELEMENTS
 1. There are three parts to an atom. Protons have a positive electrical charge and are found
together with neutrons (no electrical charge) in the nucleus of each atom. Negatively charged
electrons orbit the nucleus.
 2. The most abundant type of atom in the universe is the hydrogen atom. Nearly 74% of the atoms
in the Milky Way galaxy are hydrogen atoms.
 3. You have around 7 billion billion billion atoms in your body, yet you replace about 98% of
them every year!
 4. Atoms are very small. The average atom is about one-tenth of a billionth of a meter across. The
largest atom (cesium) is approximately nine times bigger than the smallest atom (helium).
ATOMIC STRUCTURE
 Atoms are the basic building blocks of everything around us. They come in different kinds,
called elements, but each atom shares certain characteristics in common. All atoms have a dense
central core called the atomic nucleus. Forming the nucleus are two kinds of particles: protons,
which have a positive electrical charge, and neutrons, which have no charge. All atoms have at
least one proton in their core, and the number of protons determines which kind of element an
atom is. For example, an oxygen atom has 8 protons. If you were somehow able to change the
proton number of this atom to 7, even if everything else remained the same, it would no longer be
an oxygen atom, it would be nitrogen. For this reason, we list the different elements by their
proton, or atomic, number. The periodic table of elements is a chart of all of the elements that
have been discovered so far, in order by their atomic number.
THE END