Just like people, elements in the same family generally have similar properties. These chemical families are called groups and they are organized by how many electrons they have in their outermost shell of electrons. The chart below shows you some examples of these different types of groups:
(The chart is not included)
This means that if you know what group an element belongs to, then you can predict some of its properties. For example: all elements in the same group as lithium are metals but only one type of metal (lithium). All atoms belonging to the family called Noble Gases have full outer shells and so they don’t react with anything else. And finally, Boron is a non-metal because it has three electrons in its valence shell – this makes Boron behave like other Nonmetals such as Oxygen which also shares these characteristics.
But remember that elements in the same group can have different properties – this is because an element’s position within a group matters too. For example, carbon belongs to Group 14 of the periodic table which means it has four valence electrons and so its chemistry will be quite different from boron (Group 13) which only has three. This also makes them behave like other atoms with similar characteristics such as Fluorine or Oxygen- both of these are gases at room temperature but Carbon isn’t!
The chart below shows you some examples of these groups:
Keywords: Element types; Family members; Properties; Metals vs Nonmetals; Atoms make up everything around us Bullet Points: – Most elements in a group have similar properties but they can also be different because of their position within the group. – For example, Carbon belongs to Group 14 (four valence electrons) and so it has unique chemical characteristics that are not shared with other groups such as Boron which only contains three valence electrons due to its position within Group 13. – Elements’ positions matter too; this is why carbon shares properties with fluorine or oxygen while boron does not. – Some examples of these Groups include Metals vs Nonmetals, Atoms make up everything around us, etc.. – Commonly used symbols for elements are $Fe$ for iron and $\ce{H}_