Learning about electrons improves your understanding,
It’s negative on charges; they’re speedier than lightening.
The ones, the most external, cause all the chemistry,
As they seek to comply with … electro neutrality.

You want to make an ion with a positive charge,
Take away an electron, to get a +1 charge.
You cannot add a proton; you must respect the nucleus,
You take away electrons, that is what you’re allowed.

We’re talking ‘bout electrons, with hardly any mass,
It takes almost two thousand to get a nucleon’s mass.
But talk about their movement, their speed is fast as lightening,
Their speed can be most shocking; they bring about all bonding.

But tiny as they may be, and light as they appear,
They take up all the room in the atoms as you’ll hear.
Ten to the minus two (10 -2), for the nucleons in a model,
Would need ten to the five (10 5), or more meters for the atom.

A particle that size, to travel that much space,
And hold matter together, must be a hefty pace.
They separate all nuclei and keep them from repelling,
They all respect their charges; each one answers a calling.

For metals, the external …electrons cause their luster,
And they conduct the currents of electricity.
For heat to be conducted, you need those same electrons,
And for metallic bonding, those same ones form that cloud.

When they are tightly bonded, as in covalent bonding,
They move about as quickly, they concentrate on bonding.
They won’t conduct a current, nor heat can they conduct,
They’re localized electrons, not free to roam around.