Atomic Inference Activity

Yesterday we did an inferencing activity that tied in with our lesson of atomic models. In our activity we picked up a covered plate that contained a marble. In the plate, there was a pattern of raised lines that the marble could not pass over. By rolling the marble around and listening to where it was rolling, we had to try and guess what the design inside was. This ties in with our lesson in that one model we learned about, the Rutherford model, was created through inferences. He shot high velocity alpha particles at an atom expecting that there would be very little to deflect the particles. Most particles acted like he expected, but some bounced back. He concluded that the only way the particles could bounce back is that if most of the mass in an atom is concentrated in a nucleus. In both our activity and Rutherford's experiment, we had to use observations of behavior to determine what was located inside something.