Lab - Water Quality and Contamination
Experiment 1: Drinking Water Quality
Bottled water is a billion dollar industry in the United States. Still, few people know the health benefits, if any, that come from drinking bottled water as opposed to tap water. This experiment will look at the levels of various different chemical compounds in both tap and bottled water to determine if there are health benefits in drinking bottled water.
Procedure
1. Before beginning, record your hypothesis in post-lab question 1 at the end of this procedure. Be sure to indicate which water source you believe will be the dirtiest and which water source will be the cleanest.
2. Label three 250 mL beakers Tap Water, Dasani'i, and Fiji's. Pour 100 mL of each type of water into the corresponding beakers.
Ammonia Test Strips
3. Locate the ammonia test strips. Begin by placing a test strip into the Tap Water sample and vigorously moving the strip up and down in the water for 30 seconds, making sure that the pads on the test strip are always submerged.
4. Remove the test strip from the water and shake off the excess water.
5. Hold the test strip level with the pad side up for 30 seconds.
6. Read the results by turning the test strip so the pads are facing away from you. Compare the color of the small pad to the color chart at the end of the lab. Record your results in Table 1.
7. Repeat the procedure for both Dasanis and Fiji's bottled water. Record your results for both in Table 1.
Chloride Test Strips
8. Locate the chloride test strips. Begin by immersing all the reaction zones ("the pads") of a test strip in the Tap Water sample for 1 second.
9. Shake off the excess liquid from the test strip. After 1 minute, determine which color row the test strip most noticeably coincides with on the color chart at the end of the lab. Record your results in Table 2.
10. Repeat the procedure for both Dasaniz and Fiji bottled water. Record your results for both in Table 2. 4 in 1 Test Strip
11. Locate the 4 in 1 test strips. Begin by dipping a test strip in the Tap Water for 5 seconds with a gentle back and forth motion.
12. Remove the test strip from the water and shake once, briskly, to remove the excess water.
13. Wait 20 seconds and use the color chart at the end of this lab to match the test strip to the Total Alkalinity, Total Chlorine. and Total Hardness on the color chart. Be sure to do all of the readings within seconds of each other. Record your results in Table 3.
Note: You will not be using the pH reading obtained from the 4 in 1 test strips. The pH will be determined at the end of this experiment using a different method.
14. Repeat the procedure for both Dasaniz and Fiji- bottled water. Record your results for both in Table 3. Phosphate Test Strip
15. Locate the phosphate test strips. Begin by dipping a test strip into the Tap Water for 5 seconds.
16. Remove the test strip from the water and hold it horizontally with the pad side up for 45 seconds. Do not shake the excess water from the test strip.
17 . Compare the results on the pad of the test strip to the color chart at the end of this lab. Record your results in Table 4.
18. Repeat the procedure for both Dasani- and Fiji- bottled water. Record your results for both in Table 4. Iron Test Strip
19. Now, label the three 100 mL beakers Tap Water, Dasani, and Fiji's. Use the 100 mL graduated cylinder to measure 30 mL of the Tap Water from the 250 mL beaker. Pour the Tap Water into the 100 mL beaker.
Repeat these steps for the Dasani3 and Fiji® bottled water.
20. Beginning with the Tap Water, open one foil packet of reducing powder and add it to the 100 mL beaker.
Cover the beaker with a piece of Parafilm® and shake the beaker vigorously for 15 seconds.
21. Locate the iron test strips. Remove the Parafilm3 and dip the test pad of an iron test strip into the Tap Water sample, rapidly moving it back and forth under the water for 5 seconds.
22. Remove the strip and shake the excess water off. After 10 seconds, compare the test pad to the color chart at the end of this lab. If the color falls between two colors on the color chart, estimate your result.
Record your results in Table 5.
23. Repeat the procedure for both Dasanis and Fiji- bottled water. Record your results for both in Table 5. pH Measurements
24. Use your 100 mL graduated cylinder to measure and remove 45 mL of the Tap Water from the 250 mL beaker. Discard this water. Your 250 mL beaker should now contain 25 mL of Tap Water. Repeat these step with the Dasani and Fiji bottled water.
25. Use a pipette to add 5 mL of Jiffy Juice to the Tap Water. Mix gently with the pipette or by swirling the liguid.
26. Compare the color of the Tap Water to the pH chart in the key. Record the pH in Table 6.
27. Repeat the procedure with both the Dasani and Fiji bottled water and record your results in Table 61.
POST-LAB QUESTIONS
1. Develop a hypothesis regarding which water sources you believe will contain the most and least contaminants, and state why you believe this. Be sure to clearly rank all three sources from most to least contaminants.
2. Based on the results of your experiment, would accept or reject the hypothesis you produced in question 1? Explain how you determined this.
3. Based on the results of your experiment, what specific differences do you notice among the Dasani®, Fiji®, and Tap Water?
4. Based upon the fact sheets provided (links at the end of this document), do any of these samples pose a health concern? Use evidence from the lab to support your answer.
5. Based on your results, do you believe that bottled water is worth the price? Use evidence from the lab to support your opinion.
Template
1. Carefully review the Final Lab Report instructions before you begin this assignment.
2. The Final Lab Report should cover the Drinking Water Quality Experiment from your Week Two Lab.
3. Review instructor feedback from the Week Three outline of the Final Lab Report and make changes as necessary.
4. Review the Sample Final Lab Report for an example of a final product on a different topic. Your format should look like this sample report before submission.
5. Make sure your final report is in proper APA format. Use the Sample Final Lab Report as a guide, or obtain an APA Template from the Writing Center.
6. Run your Final Lab Report through Turnitin using the student folder to ensure protection from accidental plagiarism
Title
Abstract
The abstract should provide a brief summary of the methods, results, and conclusions. It should very briefly allow the reader to see what was done, how it was done, and the results. It should not exceed 200 words and should be the last part written (although it should still appear right after the title page).
Introduction
The introduction should describe the background of water quality and related issues using cited examples. You should include scholarly sources in this section to help explain why water quality research is important to society. When writing this section, make sure to cite all resources in APA format.
The introduction should also contain the objective for your study. This objective is the reason why the experiment is being done. Your final report should provide an objective that describes why we want to know the answer to the questions we are asking.
Finally, the introduction should end with your hypothesis. This hypothesis should be the same one posed before you began your experiment. You may reword it following feedback from your instructor to illustrate a proper hypothesis, however, you should not adjust it to reflect the "right" answer. You do not lose points for an inaccurate hypothesis; scientists often revise their hypotheses based on scientific evidence following an experiment. Include an explanation as to why you made the hypothesis that you did.
Materials and Methods
The materials and methods section should provide a brief description of the specialized materials used in your experiment and how they were used. This section needs to summarize the instructions with enough detail so that an outsider who does not have a copy of the lab instructions knows what you did. However, this does not mean writing every little step like "dip the chloride test strip in the water, then shake the test strip," these steps can be simplified to read "we used chloride test strips to measure the chloride levels of each sample in mg/L", etc. Additionally, this section should be written in the past tense and in your own words and not copied and pasted from the lab manual.
Results
The results section should include all tables used in your experiments. All values within the tables or graphs should be in numerical form and contain units. For instance, if measuring the amount of chloride in water you should report as 2 mg/L or 0 mg/L, not as two or none.
The results section should also highlight the important results in paragraph form, referring to the appropriate tables when mentioned. This section should only state the results as no personal opinions should be included. A description of what the results really mean should be saved for the discussion. For example, you may report, 0mg/L of chlorine were found in the water, but should avoid personal opinions and interpretations of the data (e.g., "No chlorine was found in the water showing it is cleaner than the others samples").
Discussion
The discussion section should interpret your data and provide conclusions. Start by discussing whether you accepted or rejected your hypothesis and how you arrived at this decision. In the same section, consider some of the implications of your results. Given the chemical differences you may have noted between the water samples, are any of the differences causes for concern? Why or why not?
The discussion should also relate your results to the bigger water concerns and challenges. For example, based on your experiments you might discuss how various bottled water companies use different filtration systems. Or, you could discuss the billion dollar bottled water industry. For example, do you think it is worth it to buy bottled water? Why or why not? Your final lab report should utilize credible and scholarly resources to put your results into context.
Finally, the results section should also address any possible factors that may have affected your results, such as possible contamination in the experiments or any outside factors (e.g., temperature, contaminants, time of day). If so, how could you control for these in the future? You should also propose some new questions that have arisen from your results and what kind of experiment might be proposed to answer these questions.
Conclusions
The conclusion section should briefly summarize the key findings of your experiment. What main message would you like people to have from this report?
References
Include at least two scholarly references, two credible references, and your lab manual in APA format.
Attachment:- Lab Instructions and Template.rar