What Everything Is Made Of
- Chemistry
- Ages 11–14 · Grades 6–8
- Hands-on experiment
What you’ll find out
- All matter is made of atoms.
- Atoms join into molecules and compounds.
- A chemical reaction rearranges atoms rather than creating them.
No sign-up and no real names. In the lesson you check your understanding as you read, run the experiment yourself, and practise until it sticks.
Cutting something in half forever
Imagine cutting a piece of metal in half, then in half again, over and over. Eventually you reach a piece so small that cutting it again would leave you with something that is no longer that metal. That smallest piece is an atom. Every object around you is built out of atoms.
Atoms joining up
Atoms rarely sit alone — they join together. Two hydrogen atoms bonded to one oxygen atom make a molecule of water. Water behaves nothing like hydrogen or oxygen do separately. That is the key idea: joining atoms in a new arrangement produces something genuinely new.
Rearranging, never creating
During a chemical reaction, atoms are never created and never destroyed. They simply swap partners and form new arrangements. Count every atom before the reaction and count them again afterwards and the totals match exactly. Only the way they are joined together has changed.
Curriculum links: NGSS MS-PS1-1