Chemistry: The study of matter
QUESTIONS CHEMISTS ASK
What is matter made up of?
What are its properties?
How does it behave?
Here are the things that we will learn about in chemistry:
- What is matter made up of? The basic units of all all matter in the universe are called ATOMS. We will be looking at what atoms look like.
- What are some of the properties of atoms? We will look at the number of PROTONS and ELECTRONS in the atom.
- Why do different elements have similar properties? We will look at the organization of the PERIODIC TABLE to understand differences and similarities between the atoms of different elements.
- How do we know a chemical reaction has occurred? We will observe some CHEMICAL REACTIONS in order to see what happens when two substances react together to form a new substance.
- How do we represent a substance as atoms of the element it is made up of? We will learn how to write CHEMICAL FORMULAS and how to interpret them.
- How do we balance equations? We will use the LAW OF CONSERVATION OF MASS to balance equations