Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

hello
I'm woking on a science fair project. My question is "what is in our drinking water?" I was wondering on what kind of procedure to follow to answer this question.



Morgan

Hi Morgan,
It would be far beyond the scope of a science fair project to try to characterize all the contents of drinking water. Is there a particular water quality issue that interests you or comes to mind?

Chris

Hi Morgan,

Chris is right, you will probably want to focus on one type of component or contaminant. The Environmental Protection Agency has a list of possible types of contaminants that could be a useful starting place - the links from this page on the left hand panel might also be useful.
http://www.epa.gov/OGWDW/hfacts.html

Best of luck,
-Caroline

Morgan,

Try searching for these phrases together on Google:

"drinking water" "science fair"

Hi Morgan,
This sounds like a great idea for your science project. You may want to test for parameters such as chlorine, sodium, flouride.
Here is a list from the EPA of Drinking Water Contaminants that you could test for as well.
http://www.epa.gov/safewater/contaminants/index.html

Good luck!

I disagree with the others a bit on this one...I would just standardize by BRAND based on what you get from the big boxes at the grocery store and perform individual tests on those bottles.
-P