An introductory set, covering a wide variety of molecules including water as liquid and ice, caffeine, THC, a phospholipid and carbon buckyball.
Water is a good illustration of a small, simple molecule and shows how many of them togeather form a substance we are familiar with.
Ice can be comared to water and shows that even though they are the same molecules, they are collected togeather in a different pattern. Water is a more random colelction, while ice is an orderly, crystalline structure (which can be linked to ice crystals and snowflakes.
Caffeine and THC are both drugs, so a certain amount of understanding can be drawn from comparing them. In addittion, there are interesting points to discuss in that caffiene is an accepted drug that stimulates the body, whereas THC (the active chemical in Marijuana) is an illegal drug that relaxes the body.
DMPG is a large, complex phospholipid, demonstrating the concept of a lipid (a long carbon-hyrogen chain that repels water - lipids are the main chemicals in oils and fats), how multiple lipids can be joined into a single large molecule, and how certain sets of molecules (like lipids) can have variants that include more exotic elements (phosphorus).
The carbon buckyball (buckminster fullerine) is interesting in a number of ways. It is a large superstructure comprised of only one element (carbon). It is also a molecule that was only recently discovered, and was actually hypothesised long before it was discovered. The buckyball can also be used as a introduction to nanotechnology and the structure can also be used to show how geodesic domes are built.
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