Everything that exists — from the Sun in the sky to the centre of the Earth, and from animals to vegetables —is made up of chemicals. Many of these are familiar to us, such as water, salt, sugar, iron and oxygen. Chemicals can be different from each other in many ways. They have different tastes, like sugar and salt, or different appearances, like gold and silver. Chemicals come in many different forms; some are solids, others are liquids or gases.
Our world is composed of thousands of different substances. We call these substances ‘chemicals’. Chemicals make up the air we breathe, the ground we walk on and the food we eat. Even our bodies are a collection of chemicals!
Chemicals are often put into groups. Water, salt, sugar and oxygen are all chemicals. We call them ‘natural’ chemicals. Plastics, detergents and cosmetics are everyday chemicals too. But these do not occur naturally — they are ‘man-made’. Both types of chemicals are useful. Man-made cleaning agents remove dirt from our clothes and natural dyes from plants are used to colour fabrics.
Our food contains many different chemicals such as vitamins, proteins, fats, carbohydrates and sugars. Chemicals give fruit and vegetables their colour.
Water is made of chemicals and without it there would be no life on Earth.
Wool and cotton can be dyed with man-made chemicals or with natural chemicals from plants.
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