Resumen de Tape and Tetrahedra
Ball-and-stick models are often used to represent the shapes of molecules, but students frequently have problems relating what they see to the words we use to describe those shapes. I have found a simple solution to the problem of visualizing the tetrahedron (this can be applied to other molecular geometries and electron-pair geometry). I use masking tape or labeling tape to connect the hydrogen atoms to one another. The tape represents the edges of the tetrahedron; the four hydrogen atoms are the corners. This short article describes the procedure.
