C – Analysis of information collected

How does the water temperature of the Beaver Dam Creek Watershed affect the

water’s pH?

To investigate our research question, I used the data we collected from Beaver Dam

Creek between September 14 to November 20, 2020. Since our research question only requires

the data for the temperature and pH of the water, I can disregard the data of the salinity of the

water for now. With all the data for temperature and pH of around 66 days, I graphed the points

to determine if there was any noticeable correlation.

Though we conducted tests over a span of sixty-eight days, the Historical Tour Road was closed

for two of those days, and, as the graph shows, there are some outliers most likely due to human

error on our part. For example, the point at around 23.9 ℃, the respective pH at the value is only
4.8, which, compared to most of the other points, is much lower and can be considered an outlier

(more than 1.5 STD away).

Taking that into account, the highest temperature recorded was around 27 ℃ and the lowest

around 9 ℃ with respective pH. of 8.6 at 27 ℃ and 7.9 at 9 ℃. My original graph of all the data

taken directly from our tests seem to reveal little to no correlation, since most of the points seem

to be gathered around the same pH value- about a pH of 8. So to more accurately determine if

there is any correlation, I inputted a line of best fit, which is shown in the next graph.

The line of best fit now definitely shows a clearer representation of the correlation. It slopes

downwards through the points, and in accordance with my hypothesis (I predict that there will be

an inverse relationship between the temperature and pH so as the temperature of the water
increases, the level of pH will decrease), there seems to be some inverse correlation between

temperature and pH with pH decreasing as temperature is increasing.

In order to determine if there is an actual relationship, and not an error in my graphing, between

the temperature difference and pH levels, Pearson's correlation coefficient would be used.

This coefficient is used to measure the linear relationship between two different variables and is

expressed from the scale of -1 to 1 and the closer it is to 1 or -1, the stronger the correlation is.

Through inputting all the given variables and using the formula through Excel, I came up with a

correlation coefficient of −0.308354921 . The value of this number is not a very close to 1 or -1,

which means that there is not a very strong relationship between the two variables, temperature

and pH. There is still some, as the value is not exactly 0, and there is a slight negative

correlation, due to the number being negative, but this statistical test shows that temperature only

has some effect on the pH of water and is definitely cannot be the only factor in determining the

water’s pH.
My graph (Fig. 6) which included the line of best fit also included the statistical measure of R2

shown next to the equation of the line of best fit. R2 is just the correlation coefficient squared and

is expressed as a percentage. Our correlation coefficient squared (−0.308354921)2=0.095and

multiplied by 100 = 9.5%. Because R2 represents how many points fall exactly on the line of best

fit, a percentage of 9.5% means only around 6.27 (66 trials x 0.095) points fall on the line, which

is demonstrated through the graph. This test shows that although not many points lay directly

along the line of best fit, though most of the points are somewhat around the vicinity.

So what I have determined so far is that temperature seems to have a weak correlation with pH,

and as stated in LibreTexts, “typically, the pH of solutions will change as temperature changes.

The reasons why depend on the context, but even a simple solution of a weak acid (HA) will

exhibit a (weak) temperature dependence” (Prof. Topper). This corresponds to my findings since,

although most of the tested pH were mostly alkaline (above a pH of 7), it still exhibited

correlation in a similar fashion, present but weak. Also by LibreTexts, “if you make a change to

the conditions of a reaction in dynamic equilibrium, the position of equilibrium moves to counter

the change you have made,” meaning that if the temperature increases, equilibrium would want

to lower the temperature through means like absorbing the excess heat, according to Le

Chatelier’s Principle (Clark). In Chemistry, K w is a constant with a fixed temperature of 298

degrees Kelvin, which also happens to be 25 ℃, so as the temperature increases, the degrees

Celsius obviously fluctuates, but so does K w .

But for pure water, K w (at 25 ℃) also has a value of 1.0 ×10−14 mo l 2 d m−6 and is also expressed

by ¿.

pH takes on an equation, which is −log ¿ ¿

So, if K w was expressed as its other two terms to set ¿ equal to 1.0 ×10−14( mol 2 d m−6 ), it would

1 −14
simplify (after square-rooting both sides) to equal ¿ = 1. 0( 2 ) ×10( 2
)
. This can then be put into

the equation for pH, so; −log [ 1.0 ×10−7 ] = 7.0. Therefore, pH = 7.0 at K w or have a pH of 7.0 at

25 ℃. The table below shows the values tested like described above from 0 ℃ through 100 ℃

and the corresponding pH levels at each temperature.

Though this test only applies to pure water, it can still be useful to give a general idea of how

temperature can affect pH. As can be observed, the pH decreases slightly at every temperature

interval, and though there is a definite correlation, it is also somewhat minimal. Here is the graph

of the Effect of water temperature on the pH of the water for Pure water so that it can be visually

compared to the graph of data we collected from Beaver Dam Creek.

Both graphs show a downwards sloping trendline, and with this outside information, I can

conclude that temperature does have an effect on pH. While the correlation of temperature and

pH of pure water can be directly calculated with prior knowledge of Chemistry, since “the pH of

pure water varies with temperature because K w varies with temperature” again, using the Le

Chatelier’s Principle, the correlation discovered in our personal testing at Beaver Dam Creek, is

not pure water (slightly alkaline) and so human error and weather variability have to be taken

into account. But testing for temperature can still be a good indicator of the estimated pH of the

water, even with these uncontrollable factors, and as shown in the Effects of temperature on the

pH of water at Beaver Dam Creak graph, the slope of the line is -0.493, still a noticeable amount.
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