(upbeat music) It takes a steady hand and a bit of an engineering brain to build this tower higher and higher.

We're talking about the building blocks of matter.

It's atoms and elements and all the basic bits that make our universe.

(fire crackling) Today on "Spotlight Earth."

(upbeat music continues) (blocks thumping) Well, fortunately the universe is a little bit more resilient than my game with building blocks.

Matter is a very broad term for anything that has mass and occupies space.

So anything that you see or touch is matter.

And matter has three main states: solid, liquid, and gas.

Matter never goes away.

It just gets transferred to another form.

If we add heat to ice, a solid, (water thumping) it changes to water, a liquid.

(ice crackling) If we add cold to the liquid water, it will turn solid, ice.

(steam hissing) And if steam, water in a gaseous form, is cooled down, it will condense and turn back into liquid.

(light music) Matter is made up of atoms.

Atoms are so small, we can't see them with the naked eye.

All atoms are made up of three main parts.

Protons have a positive charge.

Neutrons are neutral, meaning they have no charge.

And electrons have a negative charge.

The protons and the neutrons are in the nucleus of the atom, while the electrons revolve around the nucleus in their orbital shells.

Atoms with the same number of protons make up our elements.

Elements are pure substances made of the same types of atoms.

There are 118 known elements, and each has unique chemical characteristics.

(light music continues) Each element is represented on the periodic table of elements, also known as the periodic table.

We have Dmitri Mendeleev to thank.

He was a Russian scientist from the 1800s who was the first to organize the elements into the table.

Elements are listed by their atomic number, which is the same number of protons in the atom.

So carbon, for example, which has the atomic number six, has six protons.

The periodic table is organized so scientists can quickly tell the properties of each element: things like mass, electron number, electron configuration, and their specific chemical properties.

Metals are on the left side of the table, while nonmetals are on the right.

Noble gases that don't mix with other elements are on the far right of the chart.

This periodic table of the elements with names, atomic numbers, symbols, and mass is color coded.

Although your mileage may vary, not all representations of the tables are created equal.

These elements can make up molecules and compounds.

A molecule is a group of atoms that are held together in a chemical bond.

These atoms can be the same element, such as oxygen, or O2, or they can be atoms of different elements, like water, or H2O.

(light music continues) Compounds are composed of two or more separate elements and make a mixture.

For example, carbon dioxide, or CO2, is a compound.

And just so you know, all compounds are molecules, but not all molecules are compounds.

(no audio) (light music) All right.

Blocks are all cleaned up.

Let's do something a bit more constructive here at the table.

Let's take a look at how molecules work in the environment.

We'll do this by diving deeper into the details about one of the most important molecules in our environment: water.

Water is made up of two hydrogens and one oxygen, H2O.

Water has some really incredible properties, like the ability to be attracted to other substances, which is called adhesion.

Adhesion happens because water is negatively charged on one end and positively charged on the other, properties that allow it to grab onto a substance, including itself.

This bonding to itself allows the molecule to be held tightly together in forces called cohesive forces.

The stronger the attraction, the greater the pull on molecules.

This creates surface tension, which allows creatures to walk on the surface of the water.

(light music continues) All of these forces are working at the same time and can be demonstrated easily.

Take a look at the water in this graduated cylinder.

There is an attraction of the water to the glass cylinder, adhesive forces.

And there is a strong attraction to one another, pulling the water down at the middle, which is cohesive forces, causing a dip at the top of the water line.

This line in the graduated cylinder is called the meniscus.

(light music continues) We're just scratching the surface when it comes to matter.

To learn more, including one of the most fundamental principles of matter, let's head to our "Spotlight Earth" lab where my cohost, Hales, is ready to go with a very cool experiment.

Yep, I am here (mysterious music) in our "Spotlight Earth" lab.

It is very plush.

And we are talking about one of the most interesting concepts about matter.

It's called the law of conservation of matter, or sometimes referred to as the law of conservation of mass.

This law states that in a chemical or physical reaction, matter is neither created nor destroyed.

(mysterious music continues) But what does that even mean?

We're gonna do an experiment to find out.

(mysterious music continues) We'll need some tools and other resources.

So I have here a balance, an Erlenmeyer flask, a cooler with some dry ice, which is the solid form of carbon dioxide, and a balloon.

(mysterious music continues) First, I'm gonna place the Erlenmeyer flask on the balance and I'm gonna place a balloon on top.

(mysterious music continues) I'll zero out the weight of the balance, and now is where it gets exciting.

I need to complete this next part quickly.

So I'm going to add the dry ice.

(mysterious music continues) (dry ice clinking) (mysterious music continues) (dry ice clinking) And place the balloon over the flask.

(mysterious music continues) And measure the mass.

(mysterious music continues) So the initial mass of the carbon dioxide is 24.30 grams.

(mysterious music continues) Now let's wait and see what happens.

(mysterious music continues) (mysterious music continues) After all of the carbon dioxide has sublimated, the balance reads (mysterious music continues)ú ah, it's so close.

We may be a few grams off because of the gas lost to the air while I was putting the balloon on the flask, but there's no solid CO2 left in the flask.

Our mass of carbon dioxide was conserved through the experiment, even though it's now a gas.

The law of conservation of matter is helpful in understanding environmental cycles that we'll discuss later, such as the water cycle, carbon cycle, and the nitrogen cycle.

Within these systems, nothing is created or destroyed, but rather, repurposed and converted.

It's so cool.

Let's check back in with Ellen to wrap things up.

That was awesome, Hales, great experiment.

Matter is made up of atoms and elements, molecules and compounds, and it is everything in our universe.

And the energy in all matter cannot be created or destroyed.

Even if something is broken down, all of the elemental building blocks still remain.

How awesome is that?

Thanks for watching.

We'll see you next time on "Spotlight Earth."

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