The Chemistry of Art > Electrons in the Atom
The distribution of electrons within elements can be related to their position in the Periodic Table
Students learn to:
- define the Pauli exclusion principle to identify the position of electrons around an atom
- identify that each orbital can contain only two electrons
- define the term sub-shell
- outline the order of filling of sub-shells
- identify that electrons in their ground-state electron configurations occupy the lowest energy shells, sub-shells and orbitals available to them and explain why they are able to jump to higher energy levels when excited
- explain the relationship between the elements with outermost electrons assigned to s, p, d and f blocks and the organisation of the Periodic Table
- explain the relationship between the number of electrons in the outer shell of an element and its electronegativity
- describe how trends in successive ionisation energies are used to predict the number of electrons in the outermost shell and the sub-shells occupied by these electrons
Students:
- process information from secondary sources to analyse information about the relationship between ionisation energies and the orbitals of electrons
- process information from secondary sources to use Hund’s rule to predict the electron configuration of an element according to its position in the Periodic Table
Extract from Chemistry Stage 6 Syllabus (Amended October 2002). © 2009, Board of Studies NSW.