Elementary School students have collected tap water samplesfrom their homes and the homes of friends and relatives. They have provided location information and what the quality of the water is at the collection point. Your task is to create a locator map that will help pinpoint the location of any contaminants and allow you to focus on their source. You may determine that additional points need to be added, or that you want to include your own homes in the database to get a complete picture of the situation. You may want to enlist the aid of the original investigators (the Elementary School students) to do some more research.
If contaminants are found and are of sufficient quantity to cause alarm (and even if they are not), you will need to find appropriate ways to remove them. I will act as a guide to suggest possible locations to find information. Indeed, I may not be sure of the best way to remove some of the chemicals found, or even if they are supposed to be removed. You will need to contact an expert in this field to help guide your project. You will gather information in the library, use the internet to find information and contact experts, and contact the appropriate local government agencies (along with the elementary school investigators).
Finally, you will construct a filter to remove the contaminants from the tap water. If a commercial filter is available, try to contact the manufacturer and request a sample of the unit for classroom use. Explain your project, and state that you desire to test its ability to remove chemicals from your test samples. Alternatively, you may need to construct a filter and demonstrate its ability to remove the desired chemical.
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You will produce a map locating the site that each sample was taken, and indicate the chemicals that were found in the water there. You will also research the appropriate ways to remove chemicals from the water and decide on the best course of action. You will contact government authorities if it is warranted, and you will devise and test filtering methods. Students from the elementary and high school classes will communicate and share information throughout the process.
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PROJECT COMPONENTS
You will correctly locate the sites of the water samples on a map of the neighborhood. You will identify trends in the data and trace the trends back to a point of origin. You will not invent a trend if none exists. You will write a two-paged (one page typed; 12pt, double-spaced, 1" margins) explanation of the identification process, complete with an analysis of the trend in pollutants (or lack thereof).
Now to assist you in obtaining a map for your use, I have talked with the nice people at MapQuest.com, and they have graciously granted permission for us to use their maps for this educational purpose. Did you know that they are the largest supplier of maps for educational use?
When you turn your map in for grading, make sure that the MapQuest emblem is still on the map, and that the copyright is not obscured. Go get a map from MapQuest.com, and you will be ready to put in the address of one of the water samples and get your map. Yes, it's just that easy!
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You will determine which chemicals present in the sample are worthy of further efforts. You will identify the contaminants in the water samples and compare the concentrations to levels that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) or the Agency for Toxic Substance and Disease Registry have designated as toxic. You will definitely identify dangerous contaminants in the water samples, whether they are at toxic levels or not.
To help you determine what the toxic levels of substances are, check out the Agency for Toxic Substance and Disease Registry (ATSDR) Minimum Risk Level database. It lists the contamination levels that are hazardous to human health. Animals and little brothers and sisters may not tolerate the levels indicated.
To further assist your efforts, you might try the Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Water. This is a really detailed site, and takes a while to load. It provides a wealth of information about everything you might like to know about water in the environment and keeping it pure and safe.
You also might find somenthing useful at the ATSDR Science Corner.
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You will identify an authority in the field, and compose an email message to send to the expert. The message will ask for information to help you determine the most effective way to deal with the contaminating chemical. You will submit a copy of the email to me, the teacher, and the email is also sent to the authority. A reply to the email is nice, but not necessary.
Guess what? The above links in Decide on Corrective Action that are provided for information about contamination amounts are also excellent sites to contact authorities. They all have ways to get in touch with experts, and I can assure you that these people would really like to hear from you if there is a problem.
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You will research the effects of a hazardous chemical present in the water samples and determine the possible health effects of the chemical. You will also research the common ways that the chemical is removed or kept from entering the drinking water supply. You will write a two-paged (one page typed; 12pt, double-spaced, 1" margins) paper describing the above components.
Once again, the links under Decide on Corrective Action will provide you with information for this component of the project.
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You will design and construct or purchase and test a filter that successfully reduces the amount of the contaminating chemical to an acceptable level. The construction steps or the source of your filter are properly documented so that the filter can be reproduced or purchased.
Will a commercial filter do the trick? How about running the water for a few seconds before using it? Always look for the lowest cost alternative that we can suggest to the students back in the elemnetary school. And if the filter can be bought easily, why reinvent the thing?
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Sure you do!! Just follow this link How I Will Be Graded and all your questions will be answered. True, the top score is 5 points, but I will arrange my grade book so that the appropriate letter grades are represented . You can safely leave that less than difficult task to me. An A would be 5 points, a B is 4 points, a C is 3 points, and nobody had better be trying for less than a C!
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