Covalent Compounds Bulletin Board

Just a quick post today to share a new covalent compounds bulletin board. I haven’t done a great job of changing my bulletin boards out this year, but that can pretty much be said about any year. I always have intentions of changing them monthly, but the reality is I change them anywhere from semesterly to never!

Covalent Compounds Bulletin Board

This covalent compounds bulletin board was completely put together by students. A former student from last year stapled up the letters that read “Covalent Compounds.” My chemistry class made the covalent compounds out of pipe cleaners, and they stapled/thumb tacked them to the bulletin board all by themselves. 

Covalent Compound Close-Ups

Sadly, the index cards didn’t photograph very well. The students color-coded their writing on the index cards to match the pipe cleaner colors that they chose to represent each element.

Each student was assigned a different covalent compound to model.

The idea to model these compounds with pipe cleaners and pony beads is thanks to Kristy Turner who originally shared the idea on twitter. She has since published an article about this activity that can be found here.

It was interesting to watch my students go through the process of figuring out which electrons had to be shared to make sure each atom had a full octet of electrons.

My chemistry students really enjoyed this activity, and the students who were absent and missed it were very sad when they saw the finished products.

My Algebra students have been very intrigued by the bulletin board. I’m not sure they realize that they have to do with chemistry because one student said they wanted to get to make a bracelet like the ones on the wall!

You can find out more information about this activity from when I blogged about it last year while doing the lesson with physical science students.