Chemicals in Your Life
You may not know it, but all of us use chemicals on a daily basis. Many of these
chemicals have common names but they have scientific names as well.
For example, sodium chloride is actually table salt.
It may be helpful to look up some of the chemicals that you use on a regular basis and
see what their actual chemical names are. Let’s try to bring chemistry into our everyday
lives.
Part A: Drugs and Chemicals
Using a search engine, such as Google, find the chemical make-ups of the following wellknown chemicals.
1. Aspirin
2. Tylenol
3. Advil
4. Aleve
5. Excedrin
6. NyQuil
7. Robitussin
8. Draino
Part B: Household Chemicals
Using a search engine, such as Google, find the chemical names and chemical formulas
for the following well-known chemicals.
9.
baking soda
10.
citric acid
11.
stomach acid
12.
battery acid
Use the following web site to list the chemical ingredients of 10 other household
chemicals that interest you or that you may use on a regular basis.
http://householdproducts.nlm.nih.gov/products.htm
Part C: Chemical Abuse
Unfortunately, there are people who choose to abuse chemicals in their everyday life.
Read the article titled, “Robotripping Grows in 9-17 Age Group”.
Answer the following questions based on the article:
1. What makes Robitussin such an easy chemical to abuse?
2. What is “robotripping”?
3. Why do you think the Robotussin abusers are between the ages of 9 and 17?
4. Name another cold medicine that teenagers are abusing?
5. What chemical is responsible for the death of this young teenager?
6. What are five negative effects of this chemical?
7. Why are teenagers deciding to abuse cold medicines rather than drugs such as
ecstasy or LSD?
8. What are companies that sell Robitussin doing to try and stop the abuse of this
drug?
9. Write a paragraph on your reaction to this article.
Part D: Research: Chemical Abuse
Pick another chemical, other than Robitussin, and research how it is abused.
Discuss: Who abuses the chemical? What are the signs and symptoms of abuse? What
are the negative side effects of abuse of this chemical? What is society trying to do to
stop the abuse of this chemical?
Make sure that you site your resources.