Pesticides


Imagine this scenario: It's lunchtime, and you're just about to indulge in one of your favorite fruits.



MMMmmmmm......As you savor the wonderful taste, you think to yourself:

"What a great flavor! The sweetness! And not to mention nutritious, too! All those healthy vitamins!"
"And don't forget the N-(phosphonomethyl) glycine. Or the atrazine..."
"Wait a minute!! What was that?!?" As you might have guessed (from the name of this module), these are just some pesticides in some of the food we eat.

Ok, here's another scenerio that you could probably relate to: Let's say that you come home from school. Your pet dog greets you at the door, and so you play with him for a while. But then you notice that it's been so hot lately. So you call your friends to go swimming at the local pool.

That sounds like a pretty normal day. Couldn't be any pesticides there, right? Actually...there are quite a few. Let's take a closer look:

(Click on the pictures.)

If you clicked on any of the pictures above, you would have seen that pesticides are all around us.

Are you surprised by how much there is?
Does it scare you?
Are they really necessary to us?

To help answer some of these question, we'll probably need a deeper understanding of pesticides. How about joining us to examine some of the science behind the chemicals called pesticides? We'll tell you some of the important facts, and then we'll discuss one of the most important and controversial pesticide, DDT. Come on along!

Where would you like to go??

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