Pesticides
Pesticides are chemicals used to kill bugs, weeds, or other pests that harm crops.
Think of it this way
A spray bottle sits on a kitchen counter next to a bowl of fruit. The bowl has small dots inside it — tiny bugs crawling on the fruit. You spray a fine mist over the bowl, and the dots vanish. The spray coats the fruit and kills the bugs on contact, the way pesticides coat crops to remove harmful pests.
Explaining pesticides by grade level
Farmers spray their plants to keep bugs away. The spray kills the bugs so the plants can grow. But the spray can also hurt other living things, like flies. In one test, a special charcoal soaked up the spray and kept the flies safe.