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Asked by 596tund47 to Aimee, Gemma, Hussain, Robert, Ross on 9 Nov 2015.
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Ross King answered on 9 Nov 2015:
Not all chemicals are dangerous! Chemicals are all around us, and even inside us, making sure that we stay alive!
A chemical is a name given to anything and everything that is made up of the building blocks of chemistry, called elements (things like hydrogen, helium, carbon and oxygen). Sugar is a chemical that is important for giving us energy, water is a chemical that is also very important for life and other chemicals like acids, can of course be very bad for us (although many acids are good for us!)
What makes some chemicals dangerous is how much of it you are in contact with and what kind of reaction this produces in the body. Carbon dioxide is a chemical that is very important for life. Without it, plants could not make energy and if we did not have plants we would be in a lot of trouble. Carbon dioxide can be very bad for us if there is too much – it can poison us. Also, oxygen itself can be poisonous! We need oxygen to breathe but because it is a very very reactive chemical, too much of it can be a bad thing. The levels of oxygen around us are fine, though, so you don’t need to worry 🙂
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Hussain Jaffery answered on 9 Nov 2015:
Anything and everything is made of chemicals. We are also made of chemicals because we are part of the natural world.
Yes, some of the chemicals we find can be dangerous. Humans are able to make some as well. And there is usually lots of care and precaution to take when working with them in the lab. What makes them hurt living things? They usually make bonds in their atoms with the chemicals in our bodies and change them unexpectedly, stalling the machines that our cells!
However everything you eat is just a bunch chemicals that actually good for you!
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