BIOL 1132 Environmental Science Lab Fall 2020

Lab Report – General Instructions

Scientific Method lab report should be organized in the following sections:

I. INTRODUCTION 3 points
II. MATERIALS AND METHODS 1 point
III. RESULTS 2 points
IV. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION 3 points
V. REFERENCES 1 point

 You will need to research proper literature and prepare the introduction,
obtain, put together, and analyze the data for lab exercise, and add your
opinion to the discussion and conclusions
 The final lab report should be submitted and turned in through Canvas or
email on the due date (check your syllabus)

Lab Report 5 – Lab Report on Water Quality report

I. INTRODUCTION
The objective of this lab exercise is to identify the main contaminants on your city
drinking water report and understand how they are regulated in your city
Write a few paragraphs about the background information for this water quality
lab report exercise (you can include information on water pollution, water
treatment procedures, other from the Drinking Water Quality Report)
One page maximum, double-spaced, 12-point font.

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II. MATERIALS AND METHODS

Write what you did to reach your results. Include the website search that you
used
Instructions:
STEP 1. Research the internet for your city’s latest Drinking Water Quality Report.
To find it, go to your city’s website first and then find the latest report, for
example, for the City of Dallas:
https://dallascityhall.com/departments/waterutilities/DCH%20Documents/pdf/
WQR2018_eng.pdf
Denton drinking water Quality report:
Denton/Government/Water%20Utilities/WQR-2018_final2.pdf
Also, you can the public tap water database provided by the Environmental
working group to explore the water quality of the water you consume and use
every day. Go to https://www.ewg.org/tapwater/
STEP 2. Look at the average levels of the following contaminants:
Nitrate
Atrazine
Total Chlorine Residual or Chloramines Lead
Copper
Total Coliforms (Bacteria)
Lead
STEP 3. Make a table with the average levels of the contaminants for your city
and compare YOUR RESULTS WITH any other city drinking water quality report
mentioning:
 How many water contaminants were detected to be above the health
guidelines?
 List the names of these water contaminants that were detected:
 Did the report indications any other additional contaminants?

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III. RESULTS
Include in this section your tables with the average levels of contaminants for
different cities and any other information for each contaminant. Compare at least
two cities

IV. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

Discuss your results using the following points as a guide (in a paragraph format,
one page maximum, double-spaced, 12-point font):
 Compare the level of contaminants in at least two cities (you should look for
the results of any other city to compare your results).
 Use the information in the report to discuss on the source and problems of
each contaminant.
 Do you have any concerns about the water quality results from your water
utility provider?
 What are some practices that we can adopt to improve our drinking water
quality?

V. REFERENCES

Cite the source of information that you used for the Introduction and/or any
other section of the report.
You can use any format for your references and the text cites, as long as you are
consistent throughout the document.
Example:
APA in-text citation style uses the author's last name and the year of publication,
for example: (Field, 2001)

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