Drawing Lewis Diagrams

Learning Objectives

  • representations of molecular substances (electron dot formulas, structural formulas, valence structures, ball-and-stick models, space-filling models) including limitations of representations.

Summary Notes

A picture of water which is a covalent molecule (Pixabay License)

What is a Covalent Bond?

  • A covalent bond is one made between two non metals where the elements share elements.

  • Common covalent molecules include water (H2O) and Carbon Dioxide (CO2).

Lewis Diagram for Chlorine Gas

Lewis Diagrams

A lewis dot diagram is a structural representation of a molecule where dots are used to show valence electron positions around atoms and lines show covalent bonds.

Videos to help build your understanding

Covalent vs Ionic Bonds

How to draw Lewis Diagrams

Practice Material

You can find a range of practice problems here.

And more problems can be found here.