Gumdrop Molecule Lab
Chemistry
Doing a Gumdrop Molecule Lab in Chemistry Class
Hello and good morning. Welcome to biology. I'm misses de Mattis, and today we're going to be doing a dumb drop molecule lab. Before we do that, since I know you are all 9th graders who have not yet taken chemistry, we're going to go over some basic rules of bonding before we build our molecules. So I sent out a supply list. Please have your materials ready. You're going to need three different colors of gumdrops and about 20 to 25 toothpicks. Remember, if you do not have your materials, you can use a sheet of paper and three different colors, preferably green, yellow, and red. Everyone will be doing this lab for participation. It's fun, easy, and hands on. So our first atom that we'll be looking at today will be represented with the red gum drops. We're going to be using those for carbon.
Carbon is known as a central atom, and it can make a maximum of four bonds. So as we build our molecules, we will make sure all the red gumdrops have exactly four toothpicks, no more, no less. The next atom will be working with will be oxygen. Oxygen will be represented by the green gum drops today, and oxygen always makes two bonds, two toothpicks, or two lines drawn from your green gum drops will be for oxygen today, no more, no less. Finally, we'll be looking at hydrogen, hydrogen will be represented with either your yellow or white gum drops, depending on what you have. And we call this a terminal atom because hydrogen only has one valence electron. So there will only be one toothpick stuck in it, and hydrogen will kind of be on the outside of the molecule. It's found in all the ends. Again, which is why it's called a terminal atom.
As we construct our glucose molecule, please remember the formula is C 6 H 1206. So when we're finished, we have to make sure we have 6 carbons or red gum drops that we have 12 hydrogens or yellow gum drops. And 6 oxygens or green gum drops. We will make sure that they all follow the rules of bonding. We are building the ring form of the glucose molecule today. There is a linear structure, but this one's a lot more fun. And as you complete your molecule, you'll have something like this. So we have our 5 carbon sugar in the middle. Our ring, and then we have all of our oxygens that are attached to a hydrogen. I hope this helps a little bit, and that you will be able to remember those rules of bonding as we go in and build our first gumdrop glucose molecule. Thank you for listening.