Dacey Presnell

Chemistry

Mr. Carter

28 January 2022

The Atom and The Mole Kids’ Book

Throughout the creation of this kid-friendly book, I was able to work alongside two great

friends of mine. All three of us were able to make a creative, interesting, and overall

informational book for an age audience of third grade and up. The essential question throughout

this project was, “How could we teach children about the atom and the mole, with the creation of

a children’s book?” This question was a little hard to answer at first, but my group mates and I

were able to learn about these two subjects (the atom and the mole) throughout our journey of

creating our kid’s book. We first learned about the history of the atom, and all of the scientists

and philosophers that contributed to the idea. All three of us wrote about two different influential

scientists/philosophers that helped fathom the idea of the atom, so a total of six historical figures

were written about. These six people were Empedocles, Democritus, Niels Bohr, John Dalton,

Ernest Rutherford, and J.J. Thomson. After we wrote an explanation that kids would be able to

comprehend about the scientists/philosophers, we all drew two cartoon photos of them (so every

person we wrote about had a drawing.) This was considered the first part of the project complete.

We also labeled it as our first chapter, which we were able to finish before the deadline. After

this chapter, we moved on to our next chapter. The second chapter was about the atom itself.

What is an atom? What exactly did these scientists/philosophers discover? These were some of

the questions my group mates and I answered in this second chapter. We were able to find a lot

of research about the atom, and the information we had from the history of its discovery also
helped us to write the second chapter. The three topics my group mates and I wrote about for this

chapter were atomic structure, electronegativity, and atomic radius. All three of us wrote about

one of these topics and drew a picture for it as well. This was one of the quickest chapters we

created, but learning about the atom itself took some time. The third chapter was the last part we

had to make, but both of my group mates were not at school throughout the week that we were

given to complete it. The last part was about the mole, which took some time and a lot of

guidance to fully understand. This led to a page of information explaining the mole in a way

children would understand, as well as an example to show how big a mole truly is (since it is a

unit of measurement.) I completed the last part on my own, even though both my partners

learned about the mole a week prior to them being absent (our class started the project the

following week.) They both had already completed a lot of work for the project so I was happy

to complete the last part on my own. Trying to comprehend how big a mole is through my

example also helped put it in perspective for me as well. Once this last part was completed, I

added the last chapter to the storybook we had been piecing together from the beginning. My

groupmates and I made a document to put it all together before we were done to keep everything

organized. With this final part added to our book, our project was complete!

When my group mates and I created this informational kid’s book about the atom and the

mole, there was not a whole lot that set us back or messed up our process. The only thing that we

lacked was communication. At one point during the beginning of this project, I noticed that one

of my group mates had not made their drawing for the person they researched. I noticed the night

before the first part was due, so I took some time to finish the drawings that were missing. The

next day we were given more time to work in class before the first part was due so my group

mate was confused about why their part was done. This was one of the two times we came across
miscommunication. Another time was near the end of the project when both my partners were

not at school. We were given a week to finish the last part, and neither of them came to school

throughout that week. I assumed they were sick or had personal reasons for being away from

school so I worked on the last part by myself. I knew how much work they had already put into

this project and how much work they were going to have to do at home so I was fine with

making the last part myself. Completing it alone also helped me understand exactly how big a

mole is so it all worked out in the end. They were surprised that it was all complete and pleased

with the final product when they both returned the following week. All three of us were able to

have some sort of advocacy role during the entire process of this project. We all made sure we

were getting our parts done and adding it to the document that we made for the children’s book

final product. Creativity was also something all three of us added to our parts. We would help

each other make everything creative and eye-catching so kids would read it and never get bored

of the final product. When I finished the last part, I made sure to look over all of our work and

correct any errors because I assumed the end of that week was the deadline for the final

children’s book. The following week when both my group mates came back to school, everyone

was given an extension due to the lack of people last week. All three of us were able to edit that

week and turn in a product all of us were proud of. If I had to change anything about our book, I

would most likely redo the drawings. I think that I could do way better even though the ones that

are on the final product now also took some time to draw. This is the only thing I would change

about our book if I had to redo it with the same deadlines. All in all, creating this book took some

time and a lot of research, but in the end, it was a fun process and I was able to learn a lot about

the atom and the mole.