Nov. 20, 2024 -- Instead of listening to a lecture and taking notes, Heights High students in Mr. Piechowski’s Chemistry classes were geared up in safety goggles and aprons to see for themselves what happens when the electron configuration of Metals, Nonmetals, and Transition Metals change. The students are currently learning about ionic and metallic bonding as well as how to write the electron configurations for elements as they lose or gain charge. And they put this new knowledge into practice last week by completing the “Electron Configurations of Atoms and Ions” lab.

Pipettes in hand, the students placed a few drops of various chemical solutions including sodium chloride, sodium phosphate, silver nitrate, and calcium chloride into two rows of their well plates. Students then added a few drops of sodium hydroxide solution to the first row and observed and recorded if a precipitate formed. If a precipitate formed, the students identified the color in their data table.

In Chemistry, a precipitate is a solid that is formed by a change in a solution, often due to a chemical reaction or change in temperature that decreases the solubility of a solid.

They repeated this process but instead added a few drops of sodium carbonate to the second row of solutions and observed how they reacted differently in terms of colors or if precipitates formed. Based on the students' observations from the lab, they concluded that solutions containing Transition Metals with partially filled d-orbitals (contains less than 10 electrons) usually had a color.

“There were three objectives for the students to complete in this lab,” said Eric Piechowski. “To observe the colors of various chemical solutions, to write the electron configurations of various metals, nonmetals, cations, and anions, and to relate the presence of color in an ionic solution as a characteristic of electron configurations.”

After completing the lab, the students practiced writing the unabbreviated electron configurations of metal and transition metal ions as they lose or gain electrons. And by referencing the Periodic Table of Elements, draw conclusions about the electron configuration of other Metal ions and if and what would cause them to have a colored solution.