The Construction of an Atom: A Live Demonstration Using Students on the Lecture Theater Stage

With many universities now admitting students into their science programs with little or no prior knowledge of the relevant field, significant challenges arise in the way these fields are introduced. Challenges mount with various preconceived ideas regarding the levels of difficulty, thus necessitating introductory concepts be presented in nonthreatening, engaging, simplistic, and efficacious ways. Within the field of Chemistry, a key introductory concept, forming the base of the scaffold for all science fields, is that of the atom and its fundamental particles. Traditionally, this physical concept is introduced visually by using the Bohr model. We have adopted a novel approach/activity where we build an atom from scratch using student volunteers to represent the fundamental particles of the atom on the lecture stage floor. We sequentially incorporate more students/particles to illustrate the various interactions that take place in the atom. The students adopt different locations and paths (dynamic movement) on the lecture floor. A synchronous display of animation using PowerPoint with the on-floor demonstration (utilizing and constructing human-atoms) is combined with key relevant questions. We sequentially ask all students during the learning experience to link the stage floor demonstration to atomic properties. This highlights key aspects and relationships, including attractive/repulsive forces between particles, electron energy levels, electron shielding/effective nuclear charge, size of atoms, reactivity of atoms, and nuclear transformations. Feedback from students (n = 226) using the Likert scale showed favorable responses to the utilization of this form of introduction.