Use your periodic table of elements. Take any element from the first column, except for hydrogen and lithium, and answer the following questions:
What is the element's name and symbol?
Is it a metal, nonmetal, or metalloid?
Which family does it belong to?
How many protons, neutrons, and electrons does its neutral atom have?
The element chosen is sodium, with the symbol Na.
1) Sodium is a metal.
2) It belongs to the alkali metal family, which is located in Group 1 of the periodic table.
3) The neutral atom of sodium has 11 protons, 11 electrons, and 12 neutrons.