Orbital Diagrams

Class started with the stamping of yesterday's homework, worksheet page 9. Then, Mrs. Mandarino went over the homework. From there, we went right into today's lesson, orbital diagrams. She first explained what it was and how to do it. To help us understand better, she had us do the bottom of worksheet page 7, all of page 8, and the first three questions of page 10. Orbital diagrams are basically just electron configurations drawn out.

Here are some basic things about orbital diagrams:

• Orbitals are expressed by using a box
• Each orbital can hold 2 electrons

• S orbitals have a max of 2 electrons       # of orbital box(es): 1
• P orbitals have a max of 6 electrons      #of orbital box(es): 3
• D orbitals have a max of 10 electrons   # of orbitals box(es):5
• F orbitals have a max of 14 electrons    #of orbitals box(es): 7

For example, how about we do neon!

The arrow looking things are indicating the electrons. The heads of the arrows are going in different ways because "opposites attract". If they were going the same way, they would repel each other and the atom wouldn't stay together.

• If this was written out in electron configuration, it would be: 1s²2s²2p⁶
• When writing in electron configuration, the s orbitals can only go up to 2 and that same concept applies in the diagrams
• The arrows represent electrons so there are only 2 for 1s and 2 for 2s, but in 2p, there are 6 arrows (just like the configuration)

The arrows in the diagram need to be drawn in a specific way though. The arrows can’t be drawn 2, then 2, then 2. They need to be drawn one by one. For example, carbon:

·      Notice how the in the 2p area, even though it was two electrons, they were drawn in 2 separate boxes

·      If there were 3 electrons, then the last box would have one arrow as well

·      What happens when there is an arrow in every box?

·      Then you go back to the beginning!

·      Like this:  

Home work: Do question 4 on page 10 (it goes onto page 11) webassigns (test is Friday!!

Eleanore Y