Click the image above to launch the Molecular Shapes tutorial.
In this Chemthink tutorial, you will explore molecular shapes and the VSEPR theory and take a short quiz. Topics include:
- attraction and repulsion between charged particles
- VSEPR (Valence Shell Electron Pair Repulsion) Theory
- going from the 2-dimensional Lewis Dot representation to a 3-dimensional visualization of the molecule
This new HTML5 version was built from the ground up to run on iPads, mobile phones, Chromebooks, and real computers in any HTML5-capable browser. Please let us know if you have any issues. Thank you so much to Mr. Charles Sprandal for creating the original version of this wonderful tutorial!
The following fill-in-the-blank notes were provided by Rebecca Carlock at Centennial High School.
Thank you Rebecca!
| Fill In The Blank Notes | PDF Version MS Word Version |
2 years ago ·
i think this is a good innovation, ti will help us much
2 years ago ·
This will be so much useful to me. thank you very much
2 years ago ·
Used it for Chem. Long but useful
#IB \0/
2 years ago ·
I’m glad to hear that it is useful!
10 months ago ·
Can the SO2 Lewis structure be fixed, please? While the shape makes sense, the Lewis is showing OS2. Oops!
10 months ago ·
Wow! Nice catch!
I think the incorrect image has been there for over 15 years. 🙂
I just uploaded a fixed version.
-Chris
10 months ago ·
Thank you!! That was so speedy! I went to show the simbucket site, with this chemthink sim, at an AP chem training I am in. I told my classmates that the Lewis was going to be wrong, but you had already corrected it. Thanks, again!
10 months ago ·
You are welcome! I just happened to be working on the computer at the time.
Thank you for sharing ChemThink, and have fun at the training!
-Chris
5 months ago ·
As usual, the Molecular Shapes ChemThink was done masterfully. Thank you so much!
In tutorial frame 26 of Molecular Shapes, it might help students if the the term ‘molecular ion’ were used instead of the word ‘molecule’.
In the problem set of Molecular Shapes, the CO3 molecule is presented and not identified as the carbonate ion which is the subject of the following frame. [If what is presented represents the carbon trioxide molecule and not carbonate ion, so as not to mislead our best students, it might be helpful to identify it as a CO3 molecule in one of its excited states or to show the molecule in its C2v ground state. (Kowalczyk, 2007).]
In the Particulate Nature of Matter ChemThink, one slide disallows molecules from having only one atom. as being a correct answer. In chemistry there are two definitions of molecule and one of them is that a molecule is “the smallest particle of a gas”. Avogadro’s definition remains.