Science Fair Project: Cleaning Up Oil Spills

[SciB]

Wow! Have fun! I hope your judging is early so that then you can relax and go look at other peoples' displays.

Just make sure you have an outline in your mind of the order of topics--introduction, hypothesis, methods, results, conclusions, discussion.

Did they give you a time for the presentation? I know it is flexible, but it depends on how many judges there are and how many talks they have to listen to. If you could cut it down to between 10 and 15 minutes it would be better. That way if one person asks a lot of questions, there is enough time to answer them all adequately.

We'll be waiting to hear how you did and what you learned about doing a good presentation.

When you do your next science project, be sure to let us know on Scibuddies. I"ll be looking forward to working with you again on something new.

Good luck and best wishes,

Sybee

[deleted-509593]

Hi Sybee,
I think I can get it down to 15 minutes. I was going to show this video of what is happening after the solution is put on. I wanted to know if you can see the oil contracting. The oil is white-ish. Phytol Solution at Work on Oil by Daring Doo, on Flickr

Click on the giant picture to be brought to the video,
Vlance

[SciB]

Yes, I saw the line of oil moving away from the drop of phytol. It would be really cool if you could set up a demonstration of the oil contraction at your display but it would not be practical, i know. The video does show the phytol effect but be sure the judges know what to watch for.

Maybe you could find a short video on Youtube or Google that shows something similar only on a large oil spill. Showing crude oil congealing and contracting would be just the visual image the judges need to understand what you are aiming at.

Sybee

[deleted-509593]

Hi Sybee,
Today was the regional fair, and I got first place! Thank you for all your help throughout this project. States is on June 2nd so I've got some more time to perfect my lab report and speech.

-Vlance

[SciB]

YAAY!!

I knew you could do it. I wish I was there to see it.

Did you get any questions that you didn't expect or that you had trouble answering? You have over three weeks till the state competition so there's time to fine-tune your presentation and maybe even do some more experiments. I want to see you win the state competition and go on to the national. I'm sure your parents are really proud of you, as we are too!

I'll be here waiting for more questions...

Sybee

[deleted-509593]

Hi Sybee,
I actually did not encounter any questions I could not answer. I got some good advice and one of judges told me about a software called ImageJ (I think that is what is was called, I had a little trouble understanding what he said) that could tell me exactly the change in the cm of the diameter of the oil segments by putting paint in the oil and then taking pictures and having the computer analyze them. Sadly, I have no more of the solutions but I do have some picture so I don't know if that would help. Do you have any suggestions for things I should be working on for states?

-Vlance

[SciB]

Congratulations on being so well prepared!

I have used ImageJ (https://imagej.nih.gov/ij/) and that was a really good suggestion by one of the judges. The program is able to measure the area of an image as well as its brightness [or darkness]. I use it for measuring the intensity of chemiluminescent bands on a protein gel, which are much brighter than the surroundings. With your oil slicks, however, there's little contrast between the oil and the water. That's why the person suggested using paint or dye in the oil to make it show up better.

You could try altering the brightness, color or contrast of your images and see if you can make the oil slick stand out better, and then see if ImageJ will recognize it. If I remember right, the program may have an outline tool where you could use the cursor to 'draw' and outline around the oil slick area and get a measurement of the area that way. I'll look it up.

I can't think of anything right now that you can do to improve your presentation, but I will give it some thought. Did you show the video of the oil contracting? Were the judges able to see it ok? As I suggested before, you could show a video or some photos of actual oil spill cleanups using phytol. You can also point out the disadvantages of using chemical dispersants to break up the oil.

How about the timing of your talk. Was it long enough without being too long?

Sybee

[deleted-509593]

Hi Sybee,
I am sorry that it has been such a long time since I have replied to you. I have been working on my Broadcom application now and realized how much there is to do. I actually did not show the judges the video. I was able to enlarge one of my photos to make it easier to see. The judges seemed to be engaged and entertained throughout my whole speech, and they did not interrupt me. I was very happy because I was talking to an environmentalist when my last judge came so I had to adapt my speech for the judge to get all the information she needed in there and it went very well. The environmentalist had to leave half way through the speech but she was very happy with my project and said it was amazing right to the judge. I did not use note cards so I think that also helped me, although sometimes I would forget to mention certain details.

-Vlance

[SciB]

Wow! Congratulations on giving such a good presentation. I'm proud of you! Isn't it really great when you can share your scientific experiments with people who have the same goals in preserving and cleaning up our environment. Pay special attention to any questions or comments you get during the talk because that's feedback that clues you into areas that you might emphasize or explain more.

The more you do talks and presentations, the better you will be at them. You just have to keep your awareness of your listeners' attention and try to get them to interact. Asking them a question is a simple way to engage and get their curiosity juices flowing. Use published information, too--like how much oil has been spilled since the start of the millennium and how much is simply stored in aging tankers waiting to be used--or to leak out (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-asia ... SKBN19709N).

It is great that you were able to talk without reciting a speech. That is by far the best way to keep people interested. As I said before, you can use the visuals on your poster board as prompts for the subjects you want to talk about. And don't worry about forgetting to mention something--we all do that!

In one of your previous posts you said that someone suggested using ImageJ to measure the area of your oil slick before and after application of phytol. That is really a great idea and would add a lot to the quantitative aspect of your project. The judges would love it that you used a professional tool like ImageJ to get exact measurements of the clean-up. All you need are the photos you took before and after phytol. Watch some of the videos on how to use ImageJ until you get more familiar with the tools, then try it. I will help.

If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask us. Be very careful with your facts and be prepared to back up your statements with references and supporting data from other sources. Make a list of references that you used as sources with a brief summary of the important findings in each one.

I know you will do really well. I just want you to be the best of the best!

Sybee

[deleted-509593]

Hi Sybee,
I have just gotten back from my school DC trip. Although it was an amazing time, it came at a bit of an inconvenient time for the science fair.

I am going to try to use Image J so that I can talk about it and know how it could be worked in the future to better measure the oil segments.

My teacher just emailed my judges comments, and I wanted your take on them.

1. Good project, but quantitative method could be improved.
2. Good ingenuity in trying to get phytol from chloropyll liquid and reaching out to local high school for use of lab space for safety. Great work on experiments and interesting approach to biodegradability with measuring impact on ocean life. Excellent not taking.
3. Excellent!

My teacher said for Judge 1 I just need to explain more in depth about what I did for the project, but I wanted to get your take on it too. I also got more confident as the judges went on so I possibly didn't give as much detail to the first one as I did the others.

-Vlance

[SciB]

Hi Vlance,

The judges' comments look great! Especially the ones that say EXCELLENT!

My understanding of the first judge's comment focuses on the key word 'quantitative'. Scientists have to measure the parameters they are studying in order to 'quantitate' them--turn them into numerical values. That's how we test measurements statistically.

OK. What I mean is that this judge probably has science training and was suggesting that you need to measure the oil slicks before and after phytol treatment in order to be able to compare them statistically. And that is where ImageJ comes in. That software will let you calculate the area of the oil slicks using a photo file, like a jpeg or tif. If you didn't take photos of each experiment then you can't do the quantitation, but at least you can explain how you would do it in the future.

I still think you could have extracted phytol from grocery store spinach. There are a number of methods online for extracting chlorophyll from spinach leaves and the next step would be heating it with acid to cleave off the phytol. I guess i'm kind of a stubborn person when it comes to an experiment. If I expect something to work then I keep hammering at it until I succeed (or give up).

OK. I think you are ready for the big time. By now you understand the chemistry and procedures and reasons for your experiments and how they relate to your hypothesis. Just be sure the judges understand WHY phytol works as it does on oil--it is a molecule that has both a water-loving (hydrophilic) and an oil-loving (lipophilic) part, and the two parts work together to cause the oil slick on water to draw together and congeal.

One thing I forgot. Did you try the oil slick experiment on salt water at the same concentration of sodium chloride as in sea water? This would be one more way of demonstrating that the phytol method would work in the real world where oil spills commonly occur in salt water more often than fresh water.

If you have any questions or want me to read some part of your report and make comments, post it here.

Good luck! We have hit a grand total of 100 replies and counting which is pretty amazing for one thread. Congratulations on sticking it out and working through all the problems. That's the way a scientist operates. I shall miss our conversation and you must promise that next year you will be back with a new project for us to guide you through!

Sybee

[deleted-509593]

Hi Sybee,
I tried to use Image J but sadly my computer could not process it and it could not open. I have tried downloading it many times and tried opening it and restarting but my computer doesn't seem to be able to process the software. Do you think the judges will understand because of my limited resources with my computer? I would talk about how I would have intended to use the software at states this weekend.

I did the phytol experiment on salt water I collected from the ocean so it shows the phytol solution does work on the real ocean.

I am hoping next year to do another science fair project with my older sister.

-Vlance

[SciB]

Hi,

It would have been great if you could use ImageJ. If you have a friend with a laptop running Win8.1 or Win10 and with at least 6 GB of RAM it will work. Is this the URL where you got the download? https://imagej.nih.gov/ij/download.html

Did you download the Platform-Independent version? Do you have the latest Java update on your PC? Are you running Windows or MacOS? ImageJ should work with either, but I'm a Windows person so am most familiar with that.

You can explain to the judges that you intended to quantitate your results using ImageJ, but it would be so much better for them to SEE the analysis.

Don't you know any computer geeks that would be willing to help you? The software is designed to work on a large variety of different platforms, so you should have been able to install and open it on your machine.

I'm glad to hear that your experiments worked in salt water as well as fresh water. That is a necessary bit of information for the judges.

If you have more questions this week, keep posting and I will watch the forum for them.

Good luck!

Sybee

[deleted-509593]

Hi Sybee,
I selected the wrong link to download but now I have got it working. I am a little confused about how to measure the diameter of the oil spill segments in the photos in centimeters. I think that I need to add a plugin but I'm not sure which one I should choose. I might not need to plugin, but how do I convert pixels to centimeters? I tried to set a scale so I could convert pixels to centimeters but I needed a microscope feature and I didn't have that. I'm hoping you can hep me, I've looked things up online but I'm stumped.

-Vlance

[SciB]

Hi Vlance,

I'm glad you got the program working. I had a feeling it was something simple like downloading the wrong platform version.

Now one thing you need to be clear on. You are not measuring the 'diameter' of the oil slick with ImageJ, you are measuring the area. If you say diameter, you will confuse the judges.

OK. So, how do you convert pixels to centimeters. I have not done this before because I just used the pixel values directly for comparison, but for you it is better to express the areas in square centimeters. Here is the instructions for how to do that from the ImageJ user guide:
https://imagej.nih.gov/ij/docs/guide/146-30.html
https://imagej.net/SpatialCalibration

30.8 Set Scale…

Use this dialog to define the spatial scale of the active image so measurement results can be presented in calibrated units, such as mm or μm. Before using this command, use the straight line selection tool to make a line selection that corresponds to a known distance. Then, bring up the Set Scale…↑ dialog, enter the Known Distance and unit of measurement, then click ‘OK’. The Distance in Pixels field will be automatically filled in based on the length of the line selection.

This sounds pretty simple. Once you find the Set Scale dialog box, just make a line of known distance then enter the dimension (pick a length, i guess) and unit (cm) and the program converts the pixels to centimeters, or square pixels to square centimeters. I think i see the problem. What the guide does not tell you is that you need an image with a scale that you can use to draw the line. You need a way of knowing the length of the line you draw relative to the image that you want to measure. I think what you will have to do is draw a line of known length in cm, photograph it at the same distance and position that you used for the oil slicks and then use the line tool to make a line of known length along the cm scale that you created. The program knows how many pixels long the line you drew is and will convert pixels to cm.

One possible problem i foresee is that you did not have the camera in exactly the same place relative to the oil slick each time. If the camera was closer, the image will be larger. The camera should have been mounted on a tripod and fixed in position relative to the oil slick so the distance was identical in each case.

Let me know if you have any trouble with this and I'll try to help.

Sybee

[deleted-509593]

Hi Sybee,
Thank you for your help!

Last night I was looking through all of my stuff and I realized I made a mistake. I had taken the diameter of all the oil spill circles. Its ok because I can use the measurements I took in real life (the diameter) to find the area of the circles to compare Image J to. I also have a couple of pictures that I know what some of the segments length was. You mentioned that I might have a problem because of how close I kept my camera, but because I worked under a fume hood I was able to keep my arms level. It is slightly hard to describe but I know that all of the pictures were taken from basically the same exact height.

So when I draw the line in Image J will it tell me the area of the circle segments of oil?

-Vlance

[SciB]

You are welcome, Vlance. Glad I could assist you in creating a winning project.

That's a bit of luck that you held the camera steady at the same height. Otherwise, comparison would have been impossible.

Follow the instructions in the ImageJ guide for calibrating the measurements. As I read it, all you have to do is use the line tool to draw a line of known length and then enter that length in centimeters and the name of the units in the dialog box and the app will convert pixels to cm.

I'll try the ImageJ calibration tomorrow and see if i can get it to work. That way I'll know what to tell you if you have a question.

I just want to make sure I understand how you are quantitating the oil slick areas. You will use the drawing tool to outline the oil slick on the image and that will give you its area. Is that right? Did the oil slick stay together in one area or did it break up into separate parts? If it is in sections, you may have to outline each part and add them together to get a total area.

I hope you did at least three measurements for each oil slick treatment. Then you can average the areas and use an online statistics app to calculate the standard deviation and standard error. This is very important! You cannot prove that there is a difference between two averages unless you know the standard deviation. If all this is unfamiliar to you, do a quick online course in basic statistics. You don't have to wait for teachers to feed you information. The internet is a wealth of knowledge just waiting to be tapped. Educate yourself and follow your interests.

Good luck!

Sybee

[deleted-509593]

Hi Sybee,
I actually figured out all my questions just now. I was playing with Image J and I figured it out. When I put the solution on it split the oil up into smaller segments. What I did for regionals is I recorded the biggest segements measurements and the smallest segments measurements. I showed the range of how small and big the segments could be with the solution on. Is that wrong? I worry with the fair being on Saturday and having to reprint everything that I will not be able to learn statistics. Is that something that the judges will be upset about? I also am a little worried on time because tomorrow night I have a performance for my school play.

-Vlance

[SciB]

Good morning Vlance. Don't worry. You have enough time to complete the project. I did not mean for you to learn statistics in two days!

Take a few minutes to read Scibuddies' explanation of the importance of statistics to a science project https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... e-projects

then watch this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efdRmGq ... pQVQv5DSe8

which shows you how to use MS-Office Excel to calculate the mean (x with a little bar over it) and standard deviation (SD).

Standard error of the mean (SEM) is the SD divided by the square root of the number of readings. Say you did the same experiment 4 times and got an average area of 120 square cm. Then you calculated the SD for your readings and came up with a value of 16. So, the SEM would be 16 divided by the square root of 4, which is 2, and your SEM would therefore be 8.

You would report your average reading as 120 plus or minus 8.

Now, in order to compare the readings with and without phytol, you calculate the means plus or minus SEM. First compare the means. How close are the values to each other? Now add or subtract the SEM's and compare again. If the values are still different then it means statistically that they probably ARE different. There is a test that needs to be done to prove this difference at what is called the 95% confidence level, but only do that if you have time.

This basic statistical analysis of your data is absolutely necessary to prove to the judges that your hypothesis that phytol improves oil spill clean-up is true. Just showing that two means are different does not prove that they are different and no scientist would accept your results.

Keep at it! You're almost done!

Sybee

[deleted-509593]

Hi Sybee,
I figured out how to the statistical analysis, I found a calculator that was able to help me. My p-value told me that my values were not significant, but that is only comparing the different prototypes. The fact that the prototypes do not really change any of the values is actually really good. It means that people can use Prototype 1 and have it work just as well as Prototype 4 but not hurt any organisms! I had to do two analysis because I have tables for the maximum areas of the segments and for the minimum area of the segments.

-Vlance

[SciB]

Good morning,

I'm a little confused. What do you mean 'prototype'? A prototype is an original model of something like an early mobile phone was the prototype of today's smart phones. I suggest you look up the definition of prototype so that you are sure that you are using the correct word.

So, tell me--does your data prove that phytol causes an oil slick to contract or not? What was your original hypothesis?

The determination of the areas of the oil slick before and after phytol treatment is the most important measurement in your project. And now I am confused again. What do you mean by maximum and minimum areas? Do you mean 'before' and 'after'? You do not want to confuse the judges by using words that do not express your meaning accurately.

Get back to me with a better explanation of your message and I will try to understand what you are saying.

Sybee

[deleted-509593]

Hi Sybee,
I am sorry for all the confusion. Ignore what I was saying, I accidentally organized the statistical analysis wrong. My teacher is helping me put it in the right spots right now so I will get back to you with the results.

-Vlance

[SciB]

OK. Did you say that your regional or state science fair was this weekend on Saturday?

I'll be waiting for your next post.

Sybee

[deleted-509593]

Hi Sybee,
My State fair is tomorrow. My teacher helped me and we were able to find the p-values using a program in google excel. I will explain the complicated part of my data. I found that a lot of segments that congealed were not together in one big clump and there was a lot of them all over the ocean water. I decided that to evaluate this data I would take the area of the smallest segments and the biggest one using Image J to give me a range of how small and big the segments would be when the solution was put on. So therefore I had tables that were for the maximum areas (the area's of the biggest segments) and minimum areas (the area's of the smallest segments). Since I had these two different tables I then had to find two p-values. For the maximum areas I found that the p-value was 0 (my teacher is gonna check my work to make sure I did it right) and the minimum areas had a p-value of 0.00000001772857061. So this showed me that there was a very slight chance my results were do to chance. I hope I explained this well, it is hard to explain everything I'm doing online.

-Vlance

[SciB]

Oh, thanks for taking the time to explain better. Now I see what you did. When you make a big change like that to your project, you need to tell us. We are here as scientist helpers to advise you on the best way to do your experiments, but we need your input to do that. An error in your procedure can make all the results invalid.

I'm still not clear on what you measured. I know it is hard to explain completely in a post but please try.

What I am getting is that you chose the largest parts (maximum) of the oil slick after phytol application and measured the area of those and then chose the smallest parts (minimum) and measured those. Am i right?

OK. So, how many measurements of area did you average in order to get the mean and what was the mean and standard deviation of the readings?

What are you comparing? You should have measured the area of the oil slick before phytol and again after phytol. The phytol makes the area smaller. You should be comparing the before-phytol readings to after-phytol readings. If your hypothesis is correct that phytol causes the slick to contract, then your p-value should be less than 0.05. Both your p-values are lower than that so your hypothesis should be proven, right?

Is this what you did?

Sybee

[deleted-509593]

Hi Sybee,
You are correct, that is what I did. I actually did record the area of the oil spill before the phytol went on and there was a big difference for all of them. Yes my hypothesis was proven correct. When I saw that my p-value was 0 I did question it but my teacher and I both confirmed it is right. Apparently there is a 0% chance of the results being by chance which I think it pretty exciting. I had 4 trials so I averaged together 4 numbers to get the mean for each time period and category (maximum or minimum area). I used a program to calculate the statistical analysis so I did not actually find the standard of deviation. I also used a ANOVA Single Factor Test if that helps. Let me know if I misunderstood one of your questions.

-Vlance

[SciB]

Hi Vlance,

Thanks for clarifying your project for me. Maybe I'm just being dense but I still don't understand what you are comparing to get a p-value.

What keeps confusing me is your use of maximum and minimum. That was not part of your hypothesis and I don't see how it fits. If I understood it correctly you said that applying phytol to an oil slick would make it smaller. Wasn't that your hypothesis?

Then, in order to test that hypothesis, all you had to do was measure the TOTAL area of the oil slick before phytol and the TOTAL area of the oil slick after phytol and compare them. If phytol made the slick area smaller and the p-value was less than 0.05, then there would be a 95% probability that the difference was statistically significant and your hypothesis was supported.

How do you use maximum and minimum in this calculation? What you must compare is total area before to total area after, and in none of your posts have I seen any mention of you adding up all the parts of the oil slick after phytol to get a total area. Can you please clarify this one last part of the method so I can finally understand how you did the experiments.

Sybee

[deleted-509593]

Hi Sybee,
I took the minimum and maximum areas to show a range of sizes that oil spill segements can be (how small it can get, and how big it can be) and then I found 2 different p-values for the different catergories. I find myself having trouble explaining this over messages, but my science teacher has approved what I’m comparing and the regional judges understood. My state competition is tomorrow morning and I think that I am ready, I will update you with what happens.

I’m sorry my explanations haven’t been very clear and have caused you confusion,
Vlance

[SciB]

Hope you have a great time at the fair, V! I wish I could be there to cheer you on. I know you will do really well. You have been one of our best students!

Do let us know how you make out and what interesting things you see. I wish you could send pictures.

All the best,

Sybee

[deleted-509593]

Hi Sybee,
I just got back from the State Fair and I am very happy to tell you that I received the Optical Society Second Place award with $75. I am very excited as I placed 10th over all out of 267 kids and and I was one person away from placing in the first category. One of my judges gave me his business card and told me to contact him for mentoring and said in 11th or 12th grade I could have a internship with him in Panama. He is going to put a picture of me and my family on his website and he took pictures of my board to translate to Spanish for the kids in Panama to read. My first judge also was very enthusiastic and commended me on all of my work, gave me a high five, and told me I was going to place. My second judge was also very happy with my project and speech.

Thank you for all of your help,
Vlance