Evidence for the Atom

Good morning and welcome to our new topic on the atom. Before we get started into the research, how long have we been trying to find them for?

Great, now we understand what an atom looks like, however, just how small is an atom?

Researching a deeper history into the atom

The task is to try and understand the science of the day and how it has progressed to what we know today. Below are a list of prominent scientists who have made contributions to our understanding of the atom. In groups of 2-4 students make a PowerPoint Presentation highlighting each scientist and their contributions. There is a list of questions to get your started on your research, however, you can format your response in any way you like, that still achieves that main goal.

LI: To understand the contributions made by scientists to assist our understanding of the atom.
SC: Able to explain how each new step improved our understanding to the model we now use.

  • Democritus
  • John Dalton
  • Michael Faraday
  • Dmitri Mendeleev – will look at how the Periodic table was developed later in unit, discuss here that he developed a way of ordering all the known elements.
  • JJ Thomson
  • Marie Curie
  • Ernest Rutherford
  • Niels Bohr
  • James Chadwick
  1. Who was the scientist and what is their background?
  2. What were their major contributions to the study of the atom?
  3. What were some of the key experiments they conducted?
  4. What discoveries did they make as a result of these experiments?
  5. How did their work impact the development of the atomic theory?

    EXTENSION – (these are extra prompting questions, not the main area to focus on)
  6. What were some of the challenges or controversies they faced during their research?
  7. What were some of the prevailing beliefs about the nature of matter at the time the scientist was conducting their research?
  8. How did their work pave the way for further discoveries in the study of atoms?
  9. What impact did their work have on other fields of science?
  10. How is the scientist remembered today and what is their legacy in the study of the atom?