Ionic bonding

Learners' understanding and thinking about ionic bonding

Some examples from ECLIPSE of what students have said relating to ionic bonding:

Calcium and oxygen would not need to bond, they would just combine, joining on to make up full shells

In ionic bonding, they both want to get full outer shells

In sodium chloride the two atoms are very close, but they do not actually touch

There's ionic bonding in a sodium chloride molecule

An ionic bond is like love: an example of a student-generated simile from the ASCEND enrichment project.

This is just one of a wide range of science topics that learners have talked about in ECLIPSE projects.


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Exploring Conceptual Learning, Integration and Progression in Science Education

Dr Keith S Taber kst24@cam.ac.uk

University of Cambridge Faculty of Education

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