HELP! Testing Creek Water Quality

[1q2w3e4r]

I have decided to do a series of a water tests for the creek water but i'm not sure how often to do each of these (either daily or weekly):

pH, turbidity, bacteria (e.coli), lead, pesticides, nitrates/nitrites, chlorine, hardness, temperature, hardness

also would 2 weeks be too short of a time period to complete this project?

[donnahardy2]

Hi,

This is a really interesting project. If you want to monitor the water quality of a source of water, then two weeks is a very short time, unless you are able to test the water source before and after a major rain, or other weather event. If your project is due June 15, then I recommend that you do as many of the tests as you can, and perhaps compare different sources of water. For example you could select one watershed and collect water before and after a city, golf course, a farm, or other potential source of chemicals that might affect water quality. Your list of tests is very ambitious; do you have the materials collected to do all of this testing?

Since this is a science fair project, you need a hypothesis and an experiment that will test your hypothesis. What is the question you are trying to answer with your project?

https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... tion.shtml

I hope this helps. Please do post again if you have additional questions.

Donna Hardy

[1q2w3e4r]

Thank you Donna for answering.

The aim is to compare creek water with drinking water.

I do have the materials to do all the tests but i'm unsure if I should complete all of them. I was quite lucky since now it's raining which would produce different results.
However, I'm still unsure whether to test chlorine, lead, pesticides and bacteria daily or weekly. Do the results of these tests change often enough for me to test them daily?

Thank you in advance

[donnahardy2]

Hi,

Water quality testing is usually done from once a week to once a month, so I would not expect your results to change on a daily basis, but perhaps if you could test before, during, and after a storm the additional testing would be warranted. Since you have a short amount of time left before your project is due, would it be possible for you to obtain samples from multiple sources? Perhaps 3-5 tap water samples and 3-5 creek samples, and perhaps repeat testing 7-10 days later? That would give you more data for your project . The pH, turbidity, E. coli, and chlorine tests would be significant. Do you have any reason to think there might be nitrites or nitrates in the water? If so, then definitely include this test. What would the significance of the temperature and hardness test be? It would be best to plan to test each sample in duplicate; the science fair judges will be impressed if you do this.

Have you done background research on all of the test methods you are planning to use? Do you have negative and positive controls to include in each assay?

It’s not too early to start putting your science board together. Here is the information from the science buddies website on this topic. You can write up all of the sections except your results and conclusions sections now.

https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... oard.shtml

Donna Hardy