Some things to think about

1. A revolutionary new pesticide called Endall has been created and is awaiting government approval for distribution and use. Some preliminary tests have been run and the results are provided below. If you were a scientist working for the EPA, how would you evaluate these results? What other tests or information would you want to know? Why? (could include graphs, charts, data tables)

2. Look for pesticides in your home or school. In obvious ones, such as Raid etc., try and determine what the active ingredients are. Can you think of anything else that could be used as a pesticide? If you can, try and determine what chemicals act as the pesticide.

3. Watch the news and read the newspaper to find current events concerning pesticides. What chemical (or chemicals) was involved? Was there a spill, a poisoning, new developments or studies performed? Were there any toxicological or epidemiological tests performed and if so what were they? How does the current event relate to the past history and use of the chemical?

4. Brine shrimp experiment. In this experiment you will make 7 cultures of brine shrimp. To six of them you will add different concentrations of pesticides and to one you will no pesticides at all. Record the number of shrimp in the control dish and in the other six dishes before adding pesticide. Now add the correct concentrations of pesticide to each dish. After several minutes count the nuumber of shrimp left in the six cultures and record you data. Make a plot of pesticide concentration vs. shrimp death. Given an untested pesticide concentration, use your graph to determine how many shrimp will be killed. What was the relationship between concentration and shrimp death? How would different pesticide concentrations affect animal populations in the wild? If the pesticide was fat soluble, and (x) concentration flowed into a lake, what concentration would be found in the bodies of the following: zooplankton, small fish, large fish, and fish-eating birds?

This completes our Activities.