The law of conservation of mass states that in a closed system, matter cannot be created or destroyed. This means that during a chemical reaction, the atoms of the reactants are rearranged to form the products. In atomic models of simple reactions, the number of atoms found in the reactants should be the same as the number of atoms found in the products.

Note: In the image below, one dot equals one atom.

Using the image of the reaction of methane above, fill in the blanks below.

In the reaction of methane, the reactants have
?
total atoms. The law of conservation of mass states that during a reactions atoms are
?
. Therefore, the products of this reaction will have ?
atoms.