Periodic Trends

During this section of class we learned about the different periodic trends, how they worked together, and what they all mean. First we learned how to count the valence electrons and to see how many each different element has. This was probably the easiest part of the whole day. Each element wants to fill is valence shell, which is the outer most shell, with eight valence electrons. The fewer protons that the element has the weaker the electronegativity the element has which means that it is easier to gain more protons. The easier is it to pull the protons out of the element the higher the ionization level will be. Electronegativity is the pull of the nucleus to the valence electrons and the Ionization energy is the amount of energy required to remove an electron from an atom. The last trend we learned about was the Atomic Radius, which is the average distance from the outermost electron to the nucleus. As you move from left to right across the periodic table the Mass increases while the Radius decreases.