Benefits to Our Community
The Pollution Preventers experiments and data could really help solve the pollution problem. As Dr. Vhlahos has said, the chemicals that have been found are phenanthrene anthracene, fluoranthene, and pyrene; however, to further our knowledge we would like to find out what is more commonly found in our lakes. It is our hope that by investigating the problem, bringing our data to city, regional, and state stakeholder groups, discussions will open up about not only just the dangers of pollution/pollutants but also ways to decrease it/them and learn to become more responsible citizens in our actions. The next steps that we would like to take to further our research would be to introduce BIF and EVA to more than just the two locations where we tested. BIF and EVA would travel to all of the Great Lakes or to specific areas of concern and be set up in numerous locations to collect data. From there, we would have a baseline starting point of how much pollution is in the water and we could open up discussion on ways to decrease pollution. Once those have been agreed upon and implemented, BIF and EVA would be placed back into the water to collect more data to see if the pollution decreased. As young citizen-scientists, we want to start important conversations and actions that will preserve the health of our lakes. On February 6th, we met with some of the experts that dedicated their time and knowledge to use and they expressed not only their interest in our research, but also many other people and groups that are interested in our data and research.