Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

I am doing an experiment on the water cycle.I want to find out if there's salt or any other substances in the rain water. But the only problem is...I dont know how to test water! Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Hi,

This sounds like a good idea for a project. Here are some ideas for analysis of your water:

Salt (sodium chloride) and other ions increase the conductivity (ability to conduct electricity) of water. If your school has a conductivity monitor, you could use that to test your water. Otherwise, you could use a voltmeter to get a reading.

You could measure general contamination by measure the optical density of the water using a spectrophotometer. Particulates and anything dissolved in the water that would affect the clarity would increase the optical density of the water.

The science buddies website also includes several other project ideas for analyzing water:

https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... ?ia=EnvSci

You can select one or more tests for your project. What is the project question you are trying to answer? What are you going to use for a control? What is your independent variable?

Let us know if you have any more questions.

Donna Hardy