Struggling with Atomic Structure? This guide covers all 25 Student Learning Outcomes including Aufbau Principle, Hund’s Rule, and orbital shapes. Download your free revision checklist now.
Student Learning Outcomes
[C-11-A-01 to C-11-A-25]
After studying this chapter, students will be able to:
Describe protons, neutrons, and electrons in terms of their relative charge and relative
masses. (Understanding)
Recognize that the terms atomic and proton number represent the same concept.
(Understanding)
Recognize that the terms mass and nucleon number represent the same concept.
(Understanding)
Explain the change in atomic and ionic radius across a period and down a group.
(Understanding)
Describe the behaviour of beams of protons, neutrons and electrons moving at the same
velocity in an electric field. (Understanding)
Determine the number of protons, neutrons, and electrons present in both atoms and ions
given atomic or proton number, mass or nucleon number and charge. (Knowledge)
Relate Quantum Numbers to electronic distribution of elements. (Understanding)
Account for the variation in successive ionization energies of an element. (Understanding)
Define terms related to electronic configuration (some examples include: shells, sub
shells, orbitals, principal quantum number (n), ground state). (Knowledge)
Describe the order of increasing energy of the sub-shells (s. p, d, and f). (Understanding)
Describe that, each atomic shell and sub-shell are further divided into degenerate orbitals
having the same energy. (Understanding)
Apply Aufbau principle, Pauli’s exclusion principle and Hund’s rule to write the electronic
configuration of elements. (Application)
Describe the number of orbitals making up s, p, d, and f sub-shells, and the number of
electrons that can fill s, p, d, and f sub-shells. (Understanding)
Describe the shapes of s, p, and d orbitals. (Understanding)
Determine the electronic configuration of elements and their ions with proton numbers.
(Some examples include: (a) simple configuration e.g., 2, 8. (b) Sub-shells e.g., 1s², 2s²,
2p6, 3s¹. (c) students should be able to determine both of these from periodic table and are
not required to memorize these. (d) Students should understand that chemical properties of
an atom are governed by valence electrons). (Knowledge and Application).
Explain the electronic configurations to include the number of electrons in each shell, shell and orbitals. (Understanding)
� Explain the electronic configurations in terms of energy of the electrons and inter-electron
repulsion. (Understanding)
� Determine the electronic configuration of atoms and ions given the proton or electron
number and charge. (Understanding)
� Describe free radical as a species with one or more unpaired electrons. (Understanding)
� Illustrate the importance of electronic configurations and development of new materials for
electronic devices. (For example, semiconductors such as silicon has a specific electronic
configuration that makes them ideal for their use in electronic devices) (Understanding)
� Deduce the electronic configurations of elements using successive ionization energy data.
(Application)
� Deduce the position of an element in the periodic table using successive ionization energy
data. (Application)
� Explain that ionization energies are due to the attraction between the nucleus and the outer
electrons. (Understanding)
� Explain how ionization energy helps account for the trends across the period and down a
group of the periodic table. (Understanding)
� Explain the factors influencing the ionization energies of elements in terms of nuclear
charge, atomic/ionic radius, shielding by inner shells and sub-shells and spin pair repulsion.
(Understanding)