We dove deeper in Lewis structures last week- even deeper than the week before! I didn't know Lewis structures could be so complicated from a simple idea of charting the valence electrons in bonds. But, there was much more to learn about Lewis structures. There were ideas of formal charges, resonance structures, bond order, and polarity. Formal charges described the charge of the atom which greatly helping in figuring out the most "correct" resonance structures. Resonance structures were the possible structures for one molecule because the double bonds, single bonds, and triple bonds could be moved around and the octet rule would still be fulfilled. Bond order was the the number of bonds between the two atoms bonding together. So if there was 1 bond, there would be a bond order of 1. Polarity was the concept that if the electron are equally shared. This means that polarity is if the electrons are pulled more closer to one atom than the other. Polarity depends on the electronegativity because electronegativity is the atoms ability to pull electrons. If one atom was more electronegative, then it would pull more electrons towards it. All these ideas add up to form a more complete idea of Lewis structures.
I greatly enjoyed the pogils in the past week. Without them, I would be very confused about the Lewis structures. The group time and and white board discussions resolved most of my confusions with the concepts. I also like the balloon lab because It helped me understand how to visualize the bonds and the geometrical name for the molecules. The ideas learned in the past week added on the the cumulative knowledge from the past about Lewis structures.
I would rate my understanding from last week about a 8/10 because I still do not understand everything fully. I know the basics of every idea but I am very confused when we dive deeper into those topics. For example, I get the basics of naming the molecules, but I do not get which one is which. I feel the the naming purely based on the shapes is really subjective and I do not know if what I think the correct name. I still wonder about the differences between all the names like a bipyramidal and just a pyramidal compared to a triangle. I believe that if I get more experience working. My participation was a 8/10 too because I was very sleepy for one day and I had to miss Friday because of a Tennis tournament. I think 8/10 isn't too bad, but it definitely can be improved. Now, I'm wondering if there are even more concepts involved in Lewis structures. There has already been so many concepts involved in Lewis structures!
These are two pictures that summarize two important concepts learned in the past week: resonance structures and naming the shapes of molecules.
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