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Lesson objectives:
By the end of this lesson, about 70% of the learners should be able to:
State observations made from Rutherford Gold foil experiment for the discovery of the nucleus
Draw conclusions from observations made in Rutherford gold foil experiment
Sketch a diagram for Rutherford gold foil experiment.
To confirm Thomson’s plum pudding model of the atom, Rutherford fired alpha particles (helium
nuclei) at a thin gold foil. Alpha particles are positively charged. Rutherford expected all the alpha
particles to pass through undeflected if plum pudding model was correct.
Activity 01:
(a) (i) What pushed Rutherford to carry out the gold foil experiment?
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(ii) Rutherford used alpha particles. What are alpha particles?
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(iii) What was Rutherford’s expectation in his gold foil experiment?
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(b) The diagram below is a picture of Rutherford gold foil experiment.
Positively
charged alpha
particles
(i) Using knowledge gained by watching the video and the above diagram,
what three observations were made by Rutherford?
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Activity 02:
(a) What prompted Rutherford to come up with conclusion 3?
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(b) What prompted Rutherford to come up with conclusion 4?
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Plenery
- What did you learn you learn today?
ASSIGNMENT
1. What two names are used to describe Rutherford’s experiment on the investigation of
atomic structure?.
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2. What observation from Rutherford concludes that:
(a) Most of the atom is an empty space
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(b) The nucleus is small
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(c) The nucleus is positively charged.
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3. What prompted Rutherford to carry out his experiment?
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4. What did Rutherford expect as the results of his gold foil experiment?
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5. What is another name for an alpha particle?
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