Sample Response: "Studying atoms is important because knowledge about atoms helps people to understand the world around them and produce materials used in daily life. Also, research done on atoms has contributed to the improvement of people's lives through medicine, to the protection of the environment, and to the discovery of new things about the world and the universe."
Many accounts of the atom begin with a history of the growth in scientists' understanding of its structure, but here we will take the opposite approach, first discussing the atom in terms of what physicists and chemists today understand. Only then will we examine the many challenges scientists faced in developing the current atomic model: false starts, wrong theories, right roads not taken, incomplete models. In addition, we will explore the many insights added along the way as, piece by piece, the evidence concerning atomic behavior began to accumulate.
People who are not scientifically trained tend to associate studies of the atom with physics, not chemistry. While it is true that physicists study atomic structure, and that much of what scientists know today about atoms comes from the work of physicists, atomic studies are even more integral to chemistry than to physics. At heart, chemistry is about the interaction of different atomic and molecular structures: their properties, their reactions, and the ways in which they bond.
Any of these could work. Nitrogen has 5 valence electrons so you just needed to pick an element that has 3 valence electrons that nitrogen could borrow. This periodic table shows valence electron counts:
