H20....and Hydrogen Bonding

 Yesterday, we made models of water molecules. 

 Each pair of students made one molecule.  They learned that a water molecule is made up of 3 atoms...2 of hydrogen and one of oxygen...

 

...which is why it's called H20!!!

 Each hydrogen atom had to be 1 cm in diameter...and each oxygen atom was supposed to be 2 cm in diameter...

 Some atoms had to be readjusted ... most were too large...

 

Using toothpicks, they placed the hydrogen atoms at 105 degrees apart.  We didn't actually measure 105 degrees, but we knew what a 90 degree angle looked like, so we just made it a little larger than that...

 All of a sudden, calling water "H20" made sense!

 Some of us had to work a bit to get them just the right size...

 

"Is this right, Mrs. J?" Austin asked.

"It looks perfect!" was the answer.

 Today, we had a treat... CALEB came back for half the day!  We were all excited and happy to see him.  The night before going to the outdoor school, Caleb got tackled in football practice and broke his femur!  He had surgery and had 14 pieces of metal put in...most of which has just recently been taken out.  He's still totally on crutches...and now has the pain under control. 

 At recess, he had a crowd of buddies who wanted to stay in and hang out and play cards with him.

 

This afternoon, we reviewed out water molecule... and Room 5 learned that the hydrogen atoms in the water molecule are attracted to the oxygen atoms of other water molecules.  This was important to understand for the WATER SNAKE experiment!

 Again, the students were paired up.  Each pair was given 2 strips of paper - 1 blue and 1 yellow - and they were to fold each of them like an accordian.  Then we drew little snake heads on one of the ends of each color.  We also cut it to look like the shape of a snake's head. 

 Then each snake was taped to the end of a ruler. 

 Isabella ended up being alone when her partner, Cameron, had to depart!

 Each pair was given a cup of water.  First, they dipped the snake's head about 1/2 centimeter into the water.  Then they took the blue snake (which was dry) and held it as close to the water as possible without getting it wet.  What happened?  Nothing!!!

 Next, they took the yellow snake, which had previously been dipped 1/2 centimeter into the water.  But this time, as the yellow snake got close to the water....

 

what happened?????

 "Mrs. Johnston!  Nothing is happenening!"

 I then demonstrated what they had all done so they could see... my blue snake did ... NOTHING!  (It wasn't suppose to!)  But as my yellow snake got close to the water...

"WOW!"

 Once Room 5 saw what happened...they were A-M-A-Z-E-D...

What had they just witnessed?   Hydrogen bonding...they had just witnessed the hydrogen and oxygen atoms of the water molecules attracting each other... bonding! 

What they saw...was the yellow snake, which was a bit wet, was pulled..or yanked...down into the water when it got really close to the water!

Hands were going up all over room 5... "Mrs. J!!! I KNOW what happened!" they all said...

They proceeded to explain to me how the hydrogen and oxygen atoms were attacted to each other.  "It's like a magnet!" was a typical comment...

Oh boy!  Another science experiment is coming next week!