Author Description

You, Mary, and Henry go to visit Tom-the-Atom World. This time they visit the town where Atoms live. They stop at the Basic Metals neighborhood to meet Aluminum (Al his nickname. Aluminum, a light, gray, and shiny element, is in Column 13 or Group 3A of the Periodic Table. You, Mary, and Henry know that he has three valence electrons in his outermost shell. Aluminum is handy to humans. Aluminum can burn in contact with Oxygen. Or he can develop a skinny Oxide layer that protects the metal, so thin that you cannot see it with a naked eye. When Aluminum has that thin layer, humans say Aluminum is Passivated. Aluminum can be passive and used in fabricating many types of structures, such as airplanes. If Aluminum has no passive layer, he can burn actively in the air, like a fourth of July sparkler! He exhibits a kind of bipolar character!