Page 103 - Microsoft Word - LessonPlan-Overview.doc
P. 103
Unit 3: Matter Page 15
word: Aurum, but the Old English All living things are mostly
word geolo (meaning yellow) was made of only five different
adapted for our modern-day “Gold” kinds of atoms! Five! You and a
word. Similarly, silver which is hamster are made of the same
element number 47 and symbol Ag stuff! All living and once living
was named after the Latin word things are made mostly of Carbon,
Argentum (Old English word Hydrogen, Oxygen, Nitrogen, and
seolfor). Calcium. Ta daa! Those are the
ingredients for life. Put ‘em in a
All atoms are made from the same bowl, stir and voila, you can make
stuff, it’s just the amount of stuff your own penguin.
that makes the atoms behave the
way they do. Next lesson we’ll talk OK, obviously it’s not that easy. It
a bit more about how the different takes a lot more than that to make
atoms behave. life, but at least now you know the
ingredients. An easy way to
If you look at a periodic table you remember the main ingredients for
will notice that (depending how living things is to remember the
recently the table was made) there word CHONC. Each letter in CHONC
will be about 112 to 118 different is the first letter in the 5 elements
elements. About 90 of those occur Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen,
naturally in the universe. The other Nitrogen and Calcium.
ones have been man-made and are
very unstable. So imagine, One last interesting thing to think
everything in existence, in the about here; of all the atoms in the
entire universe, is made of one or entire universe, 90% of them are
several of only about 90 different hydrogen. Only 10% of the entire
types of atoms. Everything, from universe is made up of anything
piano’s to pistachio’s are made other than hydrogen.
from the same set of 90 different
Lego’s! Atoms Recycle
Now, if you find that amazing, Here’s a fun fact. When you exhale
listen to this: almost everything a breath, it takes 6 years for the
in the universe is mostly made atoms in that breath to become
of only twelve different kinds of evenly distributed over the whole
atoms! But wait there’s more... world. Then, once the atoms are
evenly distributed, every person
who inhales, gets on average 1
© 2010 Supercharged Science www.ScienceLearningSpace.com
103
