Question

Hee Sun drew an electron dot diagram of a silicon atom as shown. In addition to changing the symbol to C, how would this diagram compare with an electron dot diagram of a carbon atom (C)?

Answer 1

Other than for the chemical symbol, the electron dot diagram for silicon would be the same as it was for carbon.

The reason for this is because electron dot diagrams are used to represent the electrons in the outermost, or valence, shell of an atom. In a group of the periodic table, all of the elements have the same number of valence shell electrons. This means that all elements belonging to the same group have the same electron dot diagram, except for the symbol of the element that is within the diagram.