Lab & Drug Exhibition
My lab poster above was created to reflect upon and display the work I did throughout my chemistry lab. You can see the process of that lab down below through my lab updates. This project, overall, had some successes and some failures. One of the main issues I came across during the lab was transportation and accessibility to water. I collected 6 sources of water all across Escondido, which isn't a fun drive to keep doing. I wish I could have collected more water samples, but the time I had to do in the project mixed in with the transportation made collecting pretty limited. Another big thing was accessibility to the water. I had to look on google earth before going to each location to make sure I could actually get to the water I wanted, and finding locations where I could do so was difficult to say the least. I wish I could pick many specific locations throughout the creek to improve my data, but I was instead limited to just a few locations for that reason.
The thing I will remember the most from this lab would probably be the physical testing of the water. My data was somewhat conclusive, but also somewhat inconclusive in some ways, but I still learned a lot through just testing the water, and collecting the water from the locations. I got to know what I was dealing with pretty well, whether that's information on pH, turbidity, running water, lagoons, or more. Actually physically doing work, rather than just reading about it, makes things stick into my head better, and makes me better understand it.
The thing I will remember the most from this lab would probably be the physical testing of the water. My data was somewhat conclusive, but also somewhat inconclusive in some ways, but I still learned a lot through just testing the water, and collecting the water from the locations. I got to know what I was dealing with pretty well, whether that's information on pH, turbidity, running water, lagoons, or more. Actually physically doing work, rather than just reading about it, makes things stick into my head better, and makes me better understand it.
Above is my drug advertisement I created for another chemistry project. In the drug debate project, we had to pick two different drugs in the same drug class and debate for one and against the other with a partner. My partner and I chose testosterone and estrogen, which was pretty funny, but actually taught us a lot of the importance of these two hormones. Of course we both believe that people should have access to both these hormones and they're equally important to the body, but for the sake of the argument I researched into the downsides of testosterone and upsides of estrogen. It taught me a lot of the importance of estrogen, but also the importance of testosterone. And although I was supposed to only represent estrogen in the debate, I hope the audience that saw our debates will take away the importance of both hormones, and that having a balance of both is always important.
Lab Update 3
In my finished lab, I have collected water from 6 different locations, and have tested all of their pH and turbidity. To the right is the completed data. So what does this data mean? Well, it could mean a lot of things, but I have a few ideas. Firstly, a big outlier in this data appears to be San Elijo Lagoon, and that is for good reason. Lagoons are near the ocean, and are typically shallower than freshwater lakes. The shallowness of bodies of water can have effect on their pH, additionally, lagoons are more susceptible to the pollution agriculture and industrial runoff. This most likely makes for the lower pH. When looking at the turbidity of the water sources, if we exclude the lagoon source, there is a clear increase in turbidity at Wildflower Ranch. The water gathered there was from a fast running stream, probably resulting in the gathering of different sediment in the water giving it a higher turbidity. Outside of those two outliers, most of the data given could be explained with the many streams that meet up together throughout the waters travel. Certain locations where I gathered the water sources were very close to each other, yet had several streams that met up with the water along the way. This is the case for the pH differences between Harmony Grove and Elfin Forest, two locations that are almost walking distance yet have some of the biggest pH differences on the graph. If I had all the time and resources in the world to redo this lab, there are of course a few things I would change. One issue I had with collecting data was the fact that I couldn't access the specific areas of the creek I wanted to because of several restrictions. To get the most accurate data possible, I think it would be helpful to choose more exact locations. Also, choose locations where there is only running water, or only still water. And I would of course find more conclusive data if I collected more samples from along the creek, the more the better, as there is only so much you can do with the data I have here. At exhibition, I will have a poster that displays this data and explains my lab like I did here. I don't feel like there is much necessary prep for this portion of the exhibition though, as I already know my own lab pretty well.
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Lab Update 2
So far in the lab, I have collected from three different sources of water. Starting from upstream sources to downstream, I have gotten water from Harmony Grove, Elfin Forest, and San Elijo Lagoon. As shown from the graphs to the right, it appears that so far, the further downstream the water, the lower the pH is. Stream turbidity has also seen an increase in turbidity going downstream, although out of the 3 sources tested only one measured to have any turbidity. Of course, to determine wether there is a correlation with further downstream water and lower pH, and turbidity increasing as we go further downstream, I will still need to collect more data. I expect the pH data in the final graph to show around the same decrease seen in the current graph, whereas the turbidity I am unsure what is to come of the final data.
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Lab Update 1
For my personal lab, I am measuring different sources of water for their pH and turbidity. These water sources all follow the same stream, and the water is collected from Lake Wohlford, to San Elijo Lagoon. Those two sources, along with several samples along Escondido creek and Elfin Forest will be compared to gain an understand of how the pH and turbidity of water changes when traveling downstream, and when meeting up with other streams. So far, because of transportation reasons, I have only collected the sample of water from San Elijo Lagoon, as pictured to the right. We have also been working on ionic compounds as a pre-lab we had for a chemical lab. In this lab we would observe different chemical reactions.
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Weekly self assessment 1
Gas Laws
Here are my personal gas law problems
Nutrients & Pollutants
In these labs, we were first given a sample of water to test with a partner, and then chose our own sample of water to test during class. We tested our water for copper, turbidity, chromium, silica, cyanide, pH, nitrate, phosphate, chlorine, ammonia, iron, and more to determine wether or not this water would be safe for the salmonid species.
My first water sample I tested was from Discovery Lake located in San Marcos. Multiple other people in my class also tested these waters and shared our results in order to get the most accurate data possible. Through this data we learned that these waters are safe for the salmonid species, which makes sense because that is an area where people commonly fish. Although the pH did seem slightly high, as the average healthy pH for freshwater fish ranges from 6.5-7.5
and ours averaged at 8. We did not find any chlorine, or cyanide in our water, which are very toxic chemicals, so that was good. We also didn't detect any ammonia which can be dangerous in high amounts. So it seems from these results that the water at Discovery Lake is healthy for salmonids.
and ours averaged at 8. We did not find any chlorine, or cyanide in our water, which are very toxic chemicals, so that was good. We also didn't detect any ammonia which can be dangerous in high amounts. So it seems from these results that the water at Discovery Lake is healthy for salmonids.
The second water test I did was from a body of water called Guajome Lake. The difference from the last test, is that this time around we got to collect our own samples, and collected data from bodies of water near our homes. The data I got was very paralleled to that of the data from Discovery Lake, except the main difference being the turbidity. The turbidity for Discovery Lake was measured at 20 JTU, where as the turbidity measured for Guajome Lake came in at 60 JTU. This difference makes sense for the two different lakes, because there are differences in surroundings and water flow. The rest of the data I collected from this water test, as it is similar to Discovery Lake, has led me to the conclusion that these waters are also safe for salmonids.