Sara J. Mikkelson
Amazing Chemistry
Have you ever made a miniature volcano, mixing together baking soda and vinegar to create bubbly, explosive “lava”? Maybe you have watched or done a more dangerous explosion in the backyard by dropping Mentos candy into Diet Coke (Note: DO NOT do this without an adult). Either way, you find that putting together two perfectly normal things around the house can make a big mess very quickly. The things that make up the world around us, and how those things interact are what chemistry is all about.
Atoms
What do you think of when you see the word atom? Do you think it sounds a little like “Adam”, the first person God created when He made everything? Adam was the first person, so that would mean he is your great-great-great-great-great-(a bunch more greats) grandfather! God made one person, Adam, and then he made Adam’s wife, Eve, from one of Adam’s ribs. Later they had kids (making a family) and their kids had families that eventually spread all over the earth, gathering into cities and nations. Adam was the first individual person – families, communities, cities, and nations are made up of individual people. Atoms are super tiny individual pieces (so small you can’t even see one with the most powerful microscopes) that join into molecules that build into everything around us – a table, your drink, your body, the air you breath, and anything else you can think of!
Atoms are the building blocks of everything – both living and non-living. They make up everything
Advertisement Below:
Elements
Elements are just different types of atoms that join together to make different chemicals and build up everything. You have probably heard the names of a few elements – maybe Oxygen, Carbon, Nickel, Chlorine, Sodium, Helium, or Krypton. There are some elements you can’t live with and some you can’t live without. Some are extremely common on earth and there are others that we know are out there, but haven’t really “found” yet.
The Periodic Table of Elements was made by a man named Dmitri Mendeleev as a way of organizing all the elements (different types of atoms)
Stardust?
Have you ever heard someone say that you are made of stardust – the mess an old, exploded star made in space long ago? That is just a made-up story, not at all supported by the way things work in science. There are a lot of people who believe and tell lies like this, thinking that our universe began to form with a “Big Bang” billions of years ago, and that all the elements and atoms we have today came from exploding stars. But there are a lot of big problems with these ideas. We know that stars were not made billions of years ago because the Bible says that God “created the stars also” on day four of creation. He created the stars after He made the earth, land, sea, and even plants (of course, all of those things are made of atoms)! The Bible never changes and God can’t lie – the ideas of other people will change or be false, but never God’s Word.
When a star explodes, it’s called a supernova. Giant clouds of space dust and debris, called nebula, make beautiful shapes (like the “Eagle Nebula” and ”Butterfly Nebula”) that can be seen with high-power telescopes
Star Factories
Stars are made of mostly the “smaller” types of atoms (compared to other atoms) like helium and hydrogen along with some other “heavier” elements mixed in. People who believe in the “Big Bang” say that it created stars of just helium and hydrogen first and that reactions inside those stars and their explosions would combine these lighter atoms, making them into bigger, heavier atoms. That’s a nice idea, and could almost work for a little while – but hydrogen and helium will not get us very far before we start running into a bunch of dead ends. You see, we can’t make all the different types of atoms – all the elements – from just hydrogen and helium.
Not all the elements can be made from just hydrogen and helium, but there are scientists who are testing some ideas and think that all the elements can be made from water. Notice how water is mentioned at the beginning of creation, in Genesis 1
Tiny Details
God didn’t just make the world like you or I might make a craft project. You must have supplies like paper and glue to make a craft. God made His own supplies – we can’t! God carefully created even the tiniest pieces of the things that make up our world. There tons of details in atoms that have to be perfect. God cares about even the small details of your life, too.
Thoughts From Readers
CCK is written by Sara J. Bruegel. Cartoon drawn by Eliza Haley. If you have a question, comment, cartoon, or drawing about God’s creation that you would like to share, please write to Sara at: CreationCluesForKids@gmail.com and it may get published in the next issue. Also, you can visit www.CreationClues.com to read a new clue each week or read & print past issues of CCK.
We encourage you to print as many copies as you like for yourself, friends, church, private school, ministry, or other groups, free of charge. All we ask is that you respect the author’s copyright by 1)giving full credit to the author, 2)DO NOT charge for this newsletter or in any way try to make money off of Creation Clues for Kids, and 3) DO NOT change any of the content
This is the July-September 2015 Issue – Vol. 4 No. 3
