Storm Drain Dangers?

Overview

Objectives/Goals My objective was to find out if different concentrations of stormwater runoff pollutants affect brine shrimp and algae differently. Methods/Materials The brine shrimp and algae were exposed to 2%, 5%, and 10% of antifreeze and .25%, .5% and 1% of ammonium nitrate. To measure the growth of the algae I counted the cells using a hemacytometer and digital microscope. The brine shrimp were measured by the number still living. Observations were taken daily for brine shrimp and every other day for algae. Results Low concentrations of Ammonium Nitrate don#t hurt algae as much as it hurts brine shrimp. Low concentrations of antifreeze help algae and brine shrimp in the long run. Conclusions/Discussion Different concentrations of antifreeze and fertilizer did have different effects but not as much as I had expected. There was a very small difference in the reactions of algae and brine shrimp to the different concentrations of fertilizer. I think that this was because the Ammonium Nitrate is very toxic, even at much lower concentrations. There was a bigger difference for the antifreeze. Most interestingly, the lowest concentration of antifreeze actually helped both the algae and the brine shrimp over the long run, after increasing the death rate for the brine shrimp for the first nine days. These experiments show how difficult it is to predict or measure the effect that any pollutant has on the ecosystem.

Competition history

• CSEF 2004 Environmental Science (Junior Division Only) · Entry J0902

Resources

• CSEF project summary ↗

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