Resistance and Environmental Impact

Description

Slides: 13 | Audience: High school / early-college chemistry, environmental science, or applied biology students | Format: Editable PowerPoint (.pptx) | Series: Chapter 9 of The Chemistry Spirit (Pesticides) The "miracle products" of the mid-20th century saved crops, ended epidemics, and won a Nobel Prize — and then, quietly, they stopped working. This chapter is the reckoning. Students trace how insects evolved to shrug off DDT, how broad-spectrum sprays created brand-new pests by killing their predators, and how a chemical applied to a cornfield ends up concentrated 80,000× in the tissues of a falcon. Real cases (Sri Lanka's malaria rebound, the sweet potato white fly, thinning falcon eggshells) anchor every concept, and the final slide forces students to weigh benefit against damage before they take a side. It's chemistry's honest conversation with its own consequences.