Sunday, September 20, 2015

Atomic Structure Activity

9/20/15

On Wednesday in class, we did this lab where you had to guess what shape was inside the container by guessing where this little metal ball hit on the sides of the unknown shape. A couple of the shapes were easy like a circle, a triangle, or a square. However, some of the other shapes were impossible to guess. The activity was super fun! My partner would put the container next to her ear and swish the ball around to guess where it hit to guess the shape inside. It was as if she was a shape whisperer! In a way I can see how this activity can relate to the atomic structure because it was all a guessing game. No one knew the absolute truth of the structure inside an atom. I can see how it was frustrating for the early scientist in atomic structure because you couldn't figure out the structure unless you looked inside.

2 comments:

  1. We all know that I am the true shape whisperer... ;) I found it really interesting how you rotated the disk to see where the ball stopped moving, I guess it's always good to have two shape whisperers! :)

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  2. I really enjoyed what you blogged about Brianna, and you are totally right it is all a guessing game! I did not really think about this activity in relation to how the early scientists must have felt like when they were trying to figure out what was inside the atom. It must have been so frustrating to them! It was almost frustrating to me not knowing what was inside the disk, and I could just look inside the container what the experiment was done. Since reading your post, I can now see how much time, patience, and hard early scientist like Rutherford and Thompson must have put it!

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