Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

Hello,
I am in year 9 and we have to do a science investigation, basically a science project but we have to do at least 30 hours of work on it.
I am interested in Biology and I have come up with a bit of an idea of what I would like to do.
Near where we live there is a wetland, it recently had an oxygen blackout and all the fish died. It has drained since then and they flushed out the water to make it cleaner. But this made me interested in the quality and amount of pollution in the water in suburban water systems like dams, storm water drains, wetlands and lakes.
For my project I would like to do something about the quality of water in suburban water systems. How can I measure the quality of water? (by quality, I mean how dirty and un-healthy it is. So a freshwater spring would be "good" quality water)
I know that pH, temperature, turbidity and the dissolved oxygen levels effect the quality, but are there some simple ways of doing that and what are most important to measure?
I would also like to measure the levels of dissolved oxygen, how can i do that?

Should I also measure the quality of water after rain and how that affects turbidity and things?

Thank you,
Have a good day.
climbingUP

Hi there,

These are good ideas. Why don't you take a look at this project for some inspiration for measurements, tell me what you think, and we'll go from there.

https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... p024.shtml

Cheers,
Colin

Hello,
The actual project sounds good but it is an "Abbreviated" project so it does not say anything about how to do it.I know how to get the pH, temp and turbidity but I'm not too sure on what else I should measure and how?
Thankyou

I think you need to think about a hypothesis and then decide on the appropriate measurements. pH, dissolved oxygen, and turbidity are all ways to measure "water quality", but what is the question you want to answer? It will help to focus your thinking if you can come up with a specific question/hypothesis. Are you interested in what variables affect water quality in terms of its suitability as drinking water? Are you interested in what components of "water quality" affect wildlife? Do you want to compare water from different sources (reservoirs, streams, tap, storm drain ...), and if so, what is the hypothesis? How can we make your basic idea into a testable question?

Cheers,
Colin