Prev. Article Next Article Table of Contents

Article

The Return of the Black Box

Your current credentials do not allow retrieval of the full text.

Purchase the full-text

PDF/HTML,
figures/images,
references and tables,
(where available)

Malka Yayon and Zahava Scherz

Department of Science Teaching, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 76100, Israel

J. Chem. Educ., 2008, 85 (4), p 541

DOI: 10.1021/ed085p541

Publication Date (Web): April 1, 2008

Abstract

"If protons, quarks, and other elementary particles are too small to be seen, how do scientists know they exist? And if these particles do exist, how can one estimate their size, structure, and or their arrangement in atoms?" These are some of the most frequently asked questions by students who study atomic theory. Atomic structure is an important topic, but the concepts are abstract; and difficult for students to comprehend. It is also difficult for high school teachers to provide meaningful answers to the questions their students ask. In this activity the students make indirect observations on a box, in this case a sealed video box that contains different objects, and infer and try to deduce the contents of the unseen objects in the box. The activity not only provides the students with answers; but it also gives them some idea of the scientific method used to deduce the model of the atom.

Keywords (Audience):

Elementary / Middle School Science

Keywords (Domain):

Demonstrations

Keywords (Pedagogy):

Hands-On Learning / Manipulatives

Keywords (Subject):

Atomic Properties / Structure

View: Hi-Res PDF | PDF w/ Links

Citing Articles

Citation data is made available by participants in CrossRef's Cited-by Linking service. For a more comprehensive list of citations to this article, users are encouraged to perform a search in SciFinder.

This article has been cited by 1 ACS Journal articles (1 most recent appear below).

The Science Teacher: Spring 2008
Steve Long
Journal of Chemical Education2008 85 (6), 772
- The Science Teacher: Spring 2008
  Steve Long
  Journal of Chemical Education2008 85 (6), 772
  This article reviews chemistry-related articles published between Summer 2007 and February 2008, in The Science Teacher (TST). A new TST column addresses safety-with emphases in reviewed articles on chemical hygiene plans, bloodborne pathogens, ionizing ...
  Abstract | Hi-Res PDF | PDF w/ Links