fairfolio
Saved Projects

(H2O)h My!

ISEF · 2019 Earth and Environmental Sciences

Wolfe, Mikayla · Tioga High School

Overview

This experiment determines if data from 1975, on water hardness in the US ties in with todays data. Email FFA advisors in US & ask to send area water samples. Organize vials by water hardness level. Using distilled water, make 1:10 dilution with the sample water (5mL sample, 45 mL distilled). Shake to ensure dilution is mixed. Add 1 mL of Lanthanum Oxide. Turn on acetylene gas, allowing the flame to run in the Fast Sequential Atomic Absorption Spectrometer (FSAAS). Use distilled water to get a control for results. Then use two standards (1mg/L and 5mg/L) to establish a calibration curve of Ca & Mg. Put sample #1 in holding box. Place tubing into beaker. Water will be drawn up into flame, & will atomize the solution, which allows for analysis. A Ca Mg lamp will shoot a current of light through the flame, and Ca & Mg particles will be picked up. The FSAAS will read how much Ca & Mg is in the flame. Repeat steps 8-11 with samples 2-8. Once samples analyzed, use the formula: Total Hardness = (2.497 x Ca mg/L) + (4.116 x Mg mg/L) Record total hardness. The hypothesis stated that each sample would be slightly harder than given by 1975 data. After viewing results, I noticed an error relating to stated hypothesis. Out of all eight samples, only one ties in with stated hypothesis. This one sample was in the soft category. Out of all 8 samples, there also was only one that was within normal limits of its category. 6 of 8 samples were erratic from normal limits. Sample 1 was very hard, even though it was in the soft category according to 1975. Samples 2 and 3 were the ones that were normal/slightly harder. Samples 4-8 were exceedingly softer than in 1975. In conclusion, the hypothesis is mostly wrong, due to the fact that only 1 sample was slightly harder than given by 1975 data.

Competition history

Resources

Related projects

Closest projects by meaning, across every fair and year in the corpus.

Browse more like this

Source: Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair

Save projects to your library

Sign in with Google to keep track of projects you find interesting, organized into folders. An account also raises your daily allowance for “Has this been done?”, and lets you create a key for the MCP server with a much higher limit than anonymous use. Browsing stays public.

Continue with Google