It is really interesting to know how everything is happening in nature. Certain phenomena could not have been explained for many years. Therefore, with chemistry, new thoughts and new discoveries made our understanding about nature much easier. I thought it would be interesting and enriching for me to explore this idea in the art work project.

First, to have life, there must be atoms and molecules. This is the root of everything, without that, there is no nature, no life, no matter. Dioxide is an important compound for many forms of life, it is present in the air and let our body functions work. It is also useful for giving the necessary energy to cells and to do oxidation-reduction reaction and combustion reaction. I represented the oxygen molecule in my artwork to show the importance of this compound in nature. In addition, water is another very important molecule for life. Species cannot live without water: it is the most important in life and it covers 71% of the Earth’s surface. I also represented water molecules in my artwork, because it is vital for life. This reflects the first big idea in chemistry which is ‘‘Matter is made of atoms’’. The periodic table I made also reflects this statement because it represents the elements that are the root of forming matter.

Secondly, every element is different from the others. In fact, with the year, scientists were able to determine a periodicity with the elements and created ‘‘The Periodic Table of the Elements’’. This table displays the elements in groups and periods according to their similar properties and displays them in order with their atomic mass. This periodicity was very useful to determine many other properties as the electronegativity, the atomic size, the ionization energy which were showing a trend too. To represent this periodicity presents in nature, I built a 3D periodic table which was showing the trend in the electronegativity of the elements. This reflects the second big idea of Atkins which is ‘‘Elements display periodicity’’.

Thirdly, to have life and matter, atoms have to bond. Bonds are made between atoms to let them obey the octet rule. This means that ideally, each atom in a molecule should have eight valence electrons. When two atoms share electrons to obey the octet rule, a bond is form. These bonds are essential to the formation of molecules that are essential for life. In my artwork, the way I represented the chemical bonds is with the oxygen molecules and the water molecules. We can see that the different atoms are link together with bonds and create molecules. This represents the third big idea of Atkins in chemistry which is ‘‘Chemical bonds form when electrons pair’’.

Fourthly, the fourth Atkins’s big idea state that ‘‘Molecular shape is a crucial feature in chemistry’’. In fact, to follow the model VSEPR (Valence-Shell-Electron-Pair-Repulsion), molecules have to respect a certain shape depending of their number of domain. Indeed, when atoms bond, the valence electron have a tendency to repulse each other, that’s why there are molecular shape. These shaped the molecules in order to have less repulsion possible between electrons. For example, in my artwork, the oxygen’s molecule is linear, there is a 180 degrees angle between the two atoms to respect the VSEPR model. The water molecule though is bent. Indeed, this molecule has four domains (two lone pairs and two shared pairs). The original geometric form was then a tetrahedral, but with two lone pairs, the O-H bonds are separated by 105 degrees to let the most space possible to the electrons.

Fifthly, forces between molecules are essential. In fact, the phases for each molecules are due to the intermolecular forces, the fact that certain compound are stronger than others is due to intermolecular forces. In my artwork, I represented these forces with the water molecules. The water molecule is polar, because the electronegativity of oxygen is higher that the hydrogen’s. Because of that, oxygen has the tendency to attract hydrogen’s electrons. Oxygen then becomes δ- and hydrogen becomes δ+. Because the molecule is polar, the negative side tends to attract the positive side of another molecule. Here, there is a force of attraction that link the molecules together that we call hydrogen bonding for the case of water. This is represented by the fifth Atkins’s big idea which states ‘‘There are residual forces between molecules’’.