Exploring the Classes of Pesticides
This section of the unit will cover five days of class time and will be a great mix of reading, hands-on lab experiences and research. I am fortunate in that I have my students for 2.5 hours each day so breaking that period up into three or four transitions is the norm and allows students to have ample time to explore topics both through lecture and hands-on. During this portion of the unit we will be reading and discussing an article about Atrazine (a herbicide used with corn) everyday as a warm up activity. This goes right along with the topic and is a great way to incorporate literacy into my classroom. I was able to find some great articles to use in this way with the students. [8] My district has a big push for literacy in all classrooms; in academic areas, as well as in all of our vocational classrooms, students are reading at least three times a week using different reading strategies. I have found the pyramid reading strategy to work best with my students.[9] Using it has helped them gain a better understanding of the topic when they read and it helps them put the new knowledge in their own words. The bulk of the period will be spent engaged in discussing a class of pesticides and the last portion of the class will deal with the students engaging in a lab activity on thinning of eggshells included at the end of my unit, adapted from an access excellence lesson published online.[10] This lab is based on making up particular concentrations of chemicals and then titrating solutions, this is the basis for most of the analytical work that is done in soil and water chemistry and a concept that my students need to relate to if they wish to pursue a career in the environmental sciences. Analytical techniques are important for my students and this lab on eggshell thinning is a great way to access their lab skills and give them a "sense of wonder" so to speak.
The first day of this section we will go over reading the pesticide label and also design an Excel sheet that they will record all the pertinent information about the pesticides we discuss throughout this section. The remaining four days we will also explore a class of synthetic organic pesticides and look at their mode of action, persistence in the environment, exposure issues for applicators of the chemical, examples of chemicals used in the industry, and an example of how green chemistry has improved the class of chemicals. This will be done each day using a PowerPoint presentation developed using the information contained within each of the next sections of this unit, as well as labels and MSDS sheets for each of the chemicals mentioned in each group. If you would like to acquire my PowerPoint presentations on these topics feel free to e-mail me at justin.benznccvt.k12.de.us.
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