POGIL Activity:
Coulombic Attraction
Summary

The following paragraphs are meant to summarize the activity you did in class. Compare this summary to the one your teacher asked you to write. For homework use your comparison to write down all changes you would need to make to your summary to make it accurate and complete. If you notice something that this summary leaves out then please bring it to the attention of your teacher. Your changes list should be typed and handed in to earn credit for this assignment.

• Oppositely charged particles attract one another.
• The force of attraction depends on distance. Charges that are closer are attracted with a stronger force than those farther away.
• Atoms have electrons organized into shells at different distances from the nucleus.
• The nucleus is positively charged; electrons are negatively charged.
• The outermost electrons have a weaker force of attraction for the nucleus when they are farther away.
• Elements in the same group or family (the columns in the periodic table) have a decreasing force of attraction on the outermost electrons as you go from top to bottom.
• Besides distance, the numerical value of the charge also affects the strength of the force.
• The more charges there are, the stronger the force.
• The force of attraction is the same for all electrons the same distance from a nucleus: the force is not split up and shared in some way.
• The force of attraction for outermost electrons for elements in the same period (or row) of the periodic table increases as you go left to right. This is because the outermost electrons are at roughly the same distance from the nucleus but each element in the row has one more proton than the element to its left. With more protons, the elements farther to the right have a stronger force of attraction for the outermost electrons.