Lesson for 6th grade students who had just had a unit on weather. Very few of the students had been introduced to the concepts of atoms and molecules. I tried to connect what they had learned about clouds to atoms and molecules. After the powerpoint and discussion, we did hands on activities such as cloud in a bottle, dry ice bubbles, etc. Notes included as talking points.

1. What is everything made of?
ATOMS!

2. • Atoms are so small we
can’t see them even with
a microscope
• Atoms are the smallest
particle of any material
that cannot be broken
down by chemical means*
• *Don’t worry, you don’t have to know about chemistry until
High School!

3. When atoms stick together they make
MOLECULES
• This is a drawing of
lots of water
molecules.
• Remember you can’t
see a water
molecule!
• (But you can see a
water droplet)
Water molecules aren’t really red and white!
The colors just help us show different atoms

4. Now let’s think about
something
BIG…

5. Remember clouds and what they
are made of?

6. …Tiny droplets of
water, called
water vapor

7. But what are the water droplets
made of?

8. WATER MOLECULES!

9. A single droplet of water has
2 sextillion water molecules
• That’s 2,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
molecules*
• *There are 6,697,254,041 people in the entire world (more or less)