If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a million times, “Chemistry is all about the electrons.” Why is that something I’ve likely said over a million times? It solves about 80% of student confusion.
When students get stuck, when they miss questions, when concepts feel disconnected, I bring them back to electrons. Because once they understand what the electrons are doing, the rest of chemistry starts to make sense. This phrase is truly the key in connecting chemistry concepts. Let me show you what I mean.
When Students Are Confused, I Ask One Question
When a student gets something wrong, I rarely start by correcting the answer. Instead, I say “chemistry is all about the electrons.” And then if needed, I get a few probing questions or prompts going:
- “You forgot about the electrons.”
- “Look at the valence electrons again.”
- “Where are the electrons going?”
- “Who wants the electrons more?”
- “Are the electrons shared equally?”
Because chemistry (the kind we teach in high school) is really the story of how atoms interact with each other. And atoms interact through their electrons. This consistent process of bringing it back to the electrons really ingrains for students that chemistry is really all about the electrons. It centers every test question, every concept, every lab.
Electrons Connect Everything
One of the biggest struggles students have is that chemistry feels like random topics.
Atomic structure → periodic table → bonding → reactions → moles → thermochemistry → solutions → acids & bases → redox
To students, it can feel like ten separate classes that have nothing to do with each other. But electrons connect them all.
Here are just a few examples of how electrons work at connecting chemistry concepts:
- Light: Electrons changing energy levels
- Periodic trends: How tightly are electrons held?
- Ionic bonding: Electrons transferred
- Covalent bonding: Electrons shared
- Intermolecular forces: Electron distribution and polarity
- Chemical reactions: Electrons rearranged
- States of Matter: phase changes are related to IMFs
- Solutions: dissolving process
- Acids and Bases: becoming ions when dissolving
- Redox: Electrons transferred again
When students realize this, chemistry becomes less about memorizing rules and more about understanding behavior. And understanding sticks.
I will shout it until I’m blue in the face. Put it on your wall. Say it 180 school days. The number one scientific image in the world, that everybody knows is the periodic table. It’s LITERALLY organized by the number of total electrons, valence electrons, electron orbits, and you read patterns in it based on, you guessed it, ELECTRONS. If you want to learn more about using this rule to build a good foundation for your chemistry school year, you can take my PD, here.
Why I Don’t Teach Nuclear Chemistry with Atomic Structure
And the “hill I’m willing to die on” when it comes to teaching chemistry is that Nuclear should NOT be taught with Atomic Theory. And I know there’s a ton of people who do this differently, and respectfully I disagree. Because nuclear chemistry is the exception.
Nuclear processes are about protons, neutrons, nuclear stability and radioactive decay. When nuclear is placed right after atomic structure, students often merge the ideas incorrectly. They start trying to use electrons to justify nuclear decay. They use the nucleus to justify chemical bonding. And those misconceptions are hard to undo. Trust me! I combined them my first year and BOY did I regret it!
When nuclear is done separately and placed at the end of the year students already have a solid handle on the fact that chemistry is all about the electrons. In fact, when I start my nuclear unit, I say “chemistry is all about the electrons, until you get to nuclear.” And that contrast actually helps understanding. It is the exception to the rule.
Electrons Give Students Confidence
One unexpected benefit of this approach is confidence. Students stop feeling like chemistry is random. Instead, they have a tool: “If I don’t know the answer, I find out what the electrons are doing or want to do.” That shift moves them from memorization to reasoning. And reasoning is where real learning happens.
Learn More About Teaching Chemistry
I have a PD Training titled, Making Chemistry Connections that goes more into depth on connecting chemistry concepts in your classroom. You can find that training and others in my TPT store, or in my website store.
