Running Head: Week 3 Rough Draft of the Final Lab Report 1

Week 3 Rough Draft of the Final Lab Report

Kevin Marshall

SCI 207: Our Dependence upon the Environment

Instructor: Oleg Maksimov

8 April 2017
Week 3 Rough Draft of the Final Lab Report 2

Introduction

Body Paragraph #1 - Background: The rough draft of 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 outlining this section, make sure to at least list relevant resources in APA format
that will be used in the final paper to develop the background for your experiment.

What do you see and feel when looking at water? Water is the most beautiful element on
Earth. If there were no water, All life would come to an end. This is the reason water
quality and drinkable water are very important for the human race as well as all other
species on earth. Water quality research from all around the world is used to continually
keep clean and drinkable water flowing throughout our cities and outlying farms. Roughly
97% of our water is made up of salt water and 3% is fresh water that is drinkable. This
make water that much more precious. This could be devastating if it wasn’t like that. The
clean and high quality water allows us to go through our everyday lives without becoming
sick. If water wasn’t clean you could get diseases like Dysentery, Malaria, and so many
other diseases. “Worldwide, infectious diseases such as waterborne diseases are the number
one killer of children under five years old and more people die from unsafe water annually
than from all forms of violence, including war.” (Ross, 2002) All of this could be rectified
when using proper items to improve water quality. In today’s society, our technology is so
advance that it can drastically change the amount of unclean water that is passed from
person to person. This is also saving a lot of lives all over the world. As the years go on and
on, we will continue to improve and become even more advanced. Hopefully one day we
would have enough clean water in the world for every person.

Body Paragraph # 2 - Objective: The rough draft of the introduction should also contain the
objective for your study. This objective is the reason why the experiment is being done. Your
rough draft should provide an objective that describes why we want to know the answer to the
questions we are asking. Make sure the objective ties back to ideas you discussed in the
Background, above.

I will be running a series of tests during my experiment. In these tests I will be using
different kind of contaminates that will make the water undrinkable. After the test is
completed, I will begin cleansing the contaminated water with serval different methods
from our lab to make the water drinkable again. This will prove that water being
contaminated, can still be drinkable. My reasoning for this experiment is to find out what
will happen to contaminated water when combined with technology used by quality
researchers that clean the water and make it drinkable again. By getting the answer to this
question, we will be able to realize how valuable this research is and better understand how
clean water is made.

Body Paragraph # 3 - Hypothesis: Finally, the introduction should end with your hypothesis.
This hypothesis should be the same one that you posed before you began your Drinking Water
Quality experiment. You may reword it following feedback from your instructor to put it in
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better hypothesis format; however, you should not adjust it to reflect the “right” answer. You
will not lose points if your hypothesis was wrong; scientists often revise their hypotheses based
on scientific evidence following an experiment. In addition to stating the hypothesis, offer your
rationale for it; in other words, why did you make that particular hypothesis?

My hypothesis during week 3 assignment is that if I use contaminated water then

there will be less plant diversity. If I use purified water then there will be more alive
and thriving plant diversity. I made this hypothesis because I believe the tap water
will produce a great variety of biodiversity. The pot that I believe will contain the
greatest biodiversity is the one that uses tap water because the contaminated water
will contain harmful substances that will hurt the plants vs. the clean water. This will
keep them healthy and allow them to grow. I also know that every gardener uses
what would be considered tap water to water their plants every day and these plants
live for a long time and grow beautifully.

Materials and Methods

Body Paragraph # 1: The rough draft of 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 phosphate test strip in the water, then shake the test strips,”
these steps can be simplified to read “we used phosphate test strips to measure phosphate levels
in parts per million”, etc. This section should be written in the past tense and in your own words
and not copied and pasted from the lab manual. Think cookbook recipe here; you should
explain enough of what you did for others to repeat the experiment, but with nothing extra added.

In this lab the materials and methods used consisted of beakers, sand, gravel, activated
charcoal, and tap water. The purpose of this part of the experiment was to determine how
contaminates affect water and how our earth’s ground system processes all the
contaminated water to a form of consumable resource. The steps of this process were
completed through filtering each contaminate into separate labeled beakers, observing the
water quality of each beaker. The second phase of the water quality experiment was to test
chemical and mineral levels between tap water and bottled water. After using all of the test
strips that were provided (pH, iron, chloride, etc.) my results proved that the water quality
between tap water and bottled water have the same characteristics.

Results
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Tables: The rough draft of the results section should include all the tables used in your
experiment. All values within the tables should be in numerical form and contain units (except
pH, which does not have any). For instance, if measuring the amount of chloride in water you
should report your measurement as 2 mg/L or 0 mg/L, not as two or none.

Table 1: Ammonia Test Results

Water Sample Test Results (mg/L)

Tap Water 0 mg/L

Dasani® Bottled Water 0 mg/L

Fiji® Bottled Water 0 mg/L

Table 2: Chloride Test Results

Water Sample Test Results (mg/L)

Tap Water 0 mg/L

Dasani® Bottled Water 0 mg/L

Fiji® Bottled Water 0 mg/L

Table 3: 4 in 1 Test Results

Total Alkalinity Total Chlorine Total Hardness

Water Sample
(mg/L) (mg/L) (mg/L)

Tap Water 0 mg/L 80 mg/L 0 mg/L

40 mg/L- Stayed
Dasani® Bottled Water 0 mg/L 0 mg/L
Orange

Fiji® Bottled Water 0.2 mg/L 120 mg/L 0 mg/L -Slight change

Table 4: Phosphate Test Results

Water Sample Test Results (ppm)

Tap Water 0 mg/L

Dasani® Bottled Water 0 mg/L

Week 3 Rough Draft of the Final Lab Report 5

Fiji® Bottled Water 10 mg/L

Table 5: Iron Test Results

Water Sample Test Results (ppm)

Tap Water 0 mg/L

Dasani® Bottled Water 0 mg/L

Fiji® Bottled Water 0 mg/L

Table 6: pH Results

Water Sample Test Results

Tap Water 5

Dasani® Bottled Water 3

Fiji® Bottled Water 5

Body Paragraph # 1: The rough draft of the results section should also highlight important
results in paragraph form, referring to the appropriate tables when mentioned. This section
should only state the results; 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 such as,
“No chlorine was found in the water, showing it to be cleaner than the other samples.”

Discussion

Body Paragraph #1 - Hypothesis: The rough draft of this section should interpret your data
and provide conclusions. Start by discussing if your hypothesis was confirmed or denied and
how you know this. Then consider some of the implications of your results. Given the chemical
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differences you may have noted between the water samples, are any of the differences causes for
concern?

My overall hypothesis at this point, I would actually reject it due to the fact that all three
weren’t close at all. I found out that Tap water drinking level can really save us a lot of
money by not going to store to buy water. The three labs that I have may have cause some
concern. I believe vinegar will develop a contamination and not oil. This could possibly
allow from filtering and laundry detergent will change in color, smell and form.

Body Paragraph # 2 - Context: The rough draft of your discussion should also relate your
results to bigger water concerns and challenges. For example, based on your experiment 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 outline should at least list some of the resources that
you plan to utilize in your final paper to put your results into context.

The results that were found in my tables showed the water were close to the same between
them all. The Dasani results was higher than the tap water and Fiji. The tap water had
higher results in other area as well. Since this happen, it makes the Dasani water the least
contaminated of all the water. Every water bottled company uses different methods to how
they filter their water for Dasani. The fact is bottle water is better than tap water. A lot
people agree that bottled water is cleaner, and fresher than tap water. “One thing
consumers can depend on is that the FDA sets regulations specifically for bottled water to
ensure that the bottled water is safe.” (FDA, 2002) This is a good way to have that sense of
security of what you know what you are drinking. The best thing about tap water is that a
person could go out and by a Brita water filtration system and get the same quality water
without breaking the bank. The thing of it is the price of one can be expensive depending
on the size. The answer is in comfort and efficiency. The water is already filtered into
bottles and doesn’t take the amount of time that a Brita filter does. The water companies
have reached an all-time high with the packaging and distribution of them because of the
growing demand to have cleaner water.

Body Paragraph #3 – Variables and Future Experiments: Finally, the rough draft of your
results section should also address any possible factors that affected your results, such as taking
measurements over two different days instead of all at once. If possible sources of error were
present, how might 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(s) might be devised to
answer these questions.

I completed the experiments at the same time of day using several sample of tap water.
The weather outside played a big role for me. I couldn’t get much sunlight. I could only
keep my plants in a specific place because of my dogs. I made sure that I have a clean
workspace to insure there were no outside contaminants. I washed containers all the time e
in tap water before conducting another experiment in that specific beaker. In future
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experiments, I would test the temperature of the water, and insure that all samples are the
same temperature.

Conclusions

Body Paragraph #1: This section of your rough draft should briefly summarize the key points
of your paper. What main message would you like people to take way from this report?

During all the experiments I did in the last few weeks, I have come to determine that
contaminants in water can be very dangerous, and even can alter the ability to consume
bad water. I have also discovered that through a minimally invasive water filtration
system, the components of the contaminated water can be changed, and through a more
broad type of filtration process the water can become consumable again. I have discovered
that despite popular belief bottled water is not the best option. Testing proved that tap
water is just as good and cheaper after results of my testing process. It is important that we
as a society are made more aware of how our everyday activities can impact the quality of
our water. We are the ones who will either help us live longer as a whole or kill us in a
slowly process.

References

Include at least 2 scholarly and 2 highly credible sources as well as your lab manual, in APA
format.

Department of the Environment. Methods for the examination of waters and associated
materials: chloride in waters, sewage and effluents 1981. London, Her Majesty's Stationery
Office, 1981.

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), (2015). Current Drinking Water Regulations.

Retrieved from; http://www2.epa.gov/regulatory-information-topic/water#drinking May 26,
2015.

Kotoski, James E. 1997. “Phosphorus Minifact & Analysis Sheet”. Retrieved from
http://osse.ssec.wisc.edu/curriculum/earth/Minifact2_Phosphorus.pdf

Turk, J., & Bensel. T. (2014). Contemporary environmental issues (2nd ed.) [Electronic version].
San Diego, CA: Bridgepoint Education, Inc.