My younger son did a test on Bottled Water verses Tap Water. It was really easy for his age (8yrs), and he had fun.
Steps - Call your Water Management District and ask for a water testing kit. Our was Swiftmud.
Swiftmud gave a water testing kit with a wide range of test. He just used the PH Wide Range Test for his project to keep it simple.
If you Water Management District will not give out test, just purchase PH Wide Range tablets.
Or purchase a water testing kit, that has several PH test, strips or tablets.
Home Depot and Lowes also has PH test strips usually for free.
You can also go online to Swiftmud and they have a lot of materials you can use for your research.
Next, purchase several different bottles of water. My son purchased three Spring Water bottles, and three Drinking Water bottles.
Collect Tap Water - Make sure it is not filtered, just straight tap.
Now, you run the test according to the instructions.
My son use the PH Wide Range test from Swiftmud. He had to put 10ml of the water source in a test tube, add one PH Wide Range Tablet, put a cap on the test tube tightly, slowly shake until the tablet disolved, and then compare the color of the water to the PH Wide Range Color Chart that came with the tablets.
He then recorded the data.
Next, he found out what each color meant, by reading the instruction booklet. and recorded this data.
The water was either neutral, acidic, or basic. He then recorded if the result was okay for humans to consume, or if it could be harmful and why.
Neutral = good or Okay Acidic = Not Good - It could contain toxic metals; such as, lead, copper, tin, arsenic, and others.
Basic = causes the water to be hard, but does not pose a health threat.
* a good website -
http://www.freedrinkingwater.com/water- ... ter-ph.htm to help you learn about PH*
His next test was a Taste Test. He had five people taste a sample of each water, and he asked them to record what it taste like and if they like it. He recorded this data in a simple bar graph. Number of people who liked the water....
That was it.
