8+Science+2+Melissa's+MSW+Project



Melissa Brown Yellow Febuary 17, 2010 I. Introduction**
 * Does Charlotte Country Day's Solid Waste Effect the Creek?

In Febuary of 2010 Mr. Keilty and Mrs. Walthall explained to the class that we would be doing a project to find out where and how does the CCDS middle school campus produce municiple solid waste and answer the question: how can that be improved? The purpose of this expierement is to see if the Charlotte Country Day Bissel Campus is producing waste that is making its way down to the creek. Our hypothesis was that If you move downstream then the amount of trash will increase. 1. 12 Flags (pink) 5. Water Testing Probes 9. Nets 2. Measuring Tape 6. Labquest 3. Boots 7. Buckets and trash bags 4. Life vests 8. Scale
 * II. Materials**

1. When in creek, wear waders and life vests, and be cautious of falling over, have another person not wearing waders. 2. Adult supervision 3. Be cautious when in the woods, be careful to not disturb workers or wildlife; look out for any dangerous items (Barbed wire) 4. Be cautious when near the creek while testing water, do not fall in. Guidlines to follow: 1, 3, 6, 7, 12, 16, 23, 25, 26
 * Saftey Concerns:**

1. Gather materials and suit up into waiters and boots 2. Split up into three groups: Upstream, Downstream, and Water Testing 3. Plot the measurements of where we are testing, 25 by 25 meeters, put into GPS 4. Collect data on where the trash is coming from, put all trash into bags 5. Use water testing devices to collect data on Logger Pro in all plotted areas( Water Testing group) 6. Wiegh amounts of trash from each group/ area 7. Collect the conductivity, tubidity, and PH from water; aswell as the trash data 7. Put all data into 5 seperate graphs 8. Save picutres onto student share and work on lab report
 * III. Procedure:**


 * Data:**


 * Stream Graphs ||  ||   ||   ||   ||
 * || Conductivity(uS/cm) || pH || Nitrate(Mg/L) || Turbidity (NTU) || Trash(g) ||
 * Quadrant 1 || 279.5 || 7.02 || 1 || 46.7 || 709.6 ||
 * Quadrant 2 || 152 || 7.38 || 1 || 49.4 || 201.4 ||
 * Quadrant 3 || 155.1 || 7.32 || 1 || 44.5 || 1500.4 ||
 * Quadrant 4 || 108.2 || 7.37 || 1 || 54.4 || 203.7 ||

Many of our graphs do not support our hypothesis except for graphs Turbidity.
 * Analysis:**





Our hypothesis was that If you move downstream then the amount of trash will increase.In our experiment our hypothesis was not supported. When looking back at our data, the trash in quadrant three was significantly higher than the other quadrants because we found wood which wieghed a lot of the mass. Next we looked at our data from the water samples: the acid we found in the water for quadrant three and four were higher than quadrant one not really supporting our hypothesis. Next we measured the turbidity or clearness of the water; the results came out as quadrant four was higher or (muggier) than the the other quadrants which makes the water more poluted(the only graph that supports our hypothesis). The last graph we looked at was the conductivity ( the amount of salt that can conduct electricity), which was significantly lower than the other quadrants which didnt support our hypothesis because the higher the number the more ions there are in the water. Some human and experimental errors we had in our experiment depended on the weather and if the creek was flooded or not. Some human problems we had were since it was such a big group getting our act together and really concentrating while getting our data all on our wiki spaces was complicated, which got us behind a day.All in all, this project was really fun but could use improvment. Our hypothesis was not supported but we did a good job.
 * Conclusion**:[[image:Stream_graph_conductivity.JPG width="249" height="203"]]

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