Today we continued with the Marshmallow Molecule lab. Here we are physically creating molecules from marshmallows that are representing atoms. We are using toothpicks to represent a bond (covalent bond). This lab is designed to have the students see how a formula CO2 looks like as a model where there is 1 atom of Carbon and 2 atoms of Oxygen. We also looked at 2 mixtures, where one had a solution of water and salt. The other had water and dissolved oxygen. We noticed that in the both of these mixtures, we could physically pick out the salt or the oxygen, because neither of these compounds were bonded chemically to the water. They were just mixed together with the water.
Here is a video to help explain this.
Here is a picture of what we are doing.
