Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

Hi,

This year I am wanting to do a topic that is very current. I chose the oil spill that is devistating the Gulf regions.

I am still tossing around ideas and I was wondering what ones you thought were most applicable, and were diffucult, but easy to get results from.

- I was thinking of making a scale model of the oil spill and testing which of the methods to clean up the oil is most efficient(i.e. booms, dispersants, burning, skimming).

-Second, I thought it maybe applicable to test ways to clean up the beaches(i.e. bioremediation, manual treatment, chemical cleaning, mechanical treatment, or hot water & high pressure)

-Or, I was thinking about possibly doing a combination of the 2 ideas?

-Or, what combination of the oil clean up methods(listed above) create the most efficient way of cleaning the oil spill.

Let me know what you think.

Thanks,
A

Hi,

I think this is more of a physical sciences question than a life sciences question--unless you wanted to go down, for example, the bioremediation route. Thus, I have moved your topic to the physical sciences forum.

I think it would be a great idea to do something current like comparing ways of cleaning up oil. I suspect that there is a great deal of research out there on the various techniques--you should probably start looking for that and see if anything grabs your attention.