Chemistry is the study of the properties of materials and the changes that materials undergoes. One of the joys of learning chemistry is seeing how chemical principles operates in all aspects of our lives. We have discovered pharmaceutical chemicals that enhaced our health and prolong our lives. We have increased food production through the development of fertilizers and pesticides. Indeed we produce vast amounts of chemicals that touch our lives in a variety of ways. Unfourtunately, some of this chemicals also have the potential for harming our health or enviroment. It is in our best interest as educated citizens and consumers to undestand the profound effects, both positive and negative that chemicals have in our lives.
Our interactions with the material world raise basic questions about the materials around us. What are their compositions and properties? How do they interact with us and their environment? How, why and when do they undergo change? These questions are important wheter the material is a modern polymer involved in the production of high-tech computer chips, and aged pigment used by a Renaissance painter, or an extraterretrial material collected during a space mission. Chemistry provides answers to these and countless other questions.
Chemistry and chemicals are an integral part of life although they are not always positive references. A labeling announcing the absence of chemical products in the food does not make sense, because all the foods are, in themselves, chemical products, even the so-called "organic crops". In fact, all material objects, living or inanimate beings, are composed of chemical products and we must begin our study with this clear idea.
