Our Goal
Experimental Process
The Pollution Preventers project started out as a result of learning about water quality as a whole class. Our teacher, Mrs. Teisan had the entire FutureThink class research the website exploravision.org. When she saw how interested we were in the aspects of water quality and how to prevent it, she introduced us to this project. She helped us pull the Pollution Preventers together. In the following days, we began to meet out in the hall during our FutureThink class to do research on pollution in the Great Lakes. When we met in the halls, this gave us the opportunity to discuss our findings with one another. On December 12th, 2011, we started to build our Basic Information Flotations (BIF) with the help of Mr. Krueger (a teacher at Harper Woods Middle School). Dr. Penny Vhlahos mailed our Ethylene Vinyl Acetate Plates (EVA) to us from the University of Connecticut so that we were able to deploy our BIFs the following day. On December 13th, 2011, we deployed our BIFs at two different sites. Site A is at Lake Erie MetroPark, and Site B is at Lake St. Clair MetroPark . Our BIF and EVA plates were then left in the water for one week to collect water samples.
Afterwards, we met with Dr. Sonia Joseph Joshi from Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory in Ann Arbor (GLERL). She discussed combined sewer overflows, where pollution can com from, run-off, factories, things we do everyday, as well as the pollution in Lake St. Clair.
The Pollution Preventers team traveled back to our sites on December 20th, 2011 to collect BIF and EVA. When collecting the EVA plates, we had to be very delicate and use tin foil to handle them. We used tin foil to create a barrier between our fingers and the plates to avoid contamination. In addition, tin foil was used to handle the plates because we were not testing for metals- only organic compounds. If we were to use Saran Wrap to handle the plates, there was risk of contamination since there might be a type of organic compound in the Saran Wrap. Using tin foil, we re-wrapped the EVA plates to be sent back to the University of Connecticut to be analyzed by Dr. Penny Vlahos.
Each trip that we took, we recorded our experience by taking photos, as well as recordings of water temperature, dissolved oxygen, and pH (see attached photos). We took these recording to ensure that there were no drastic changes in the water over a week. Once the plates were sent out, we began working on our mission folder.
Afterwards, we met with Dr. Sonia Joseph Joshi from Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory in Ann Arbor (GLERL). She discussed combined sewer overflows, where pollution can com from, run-off, factories, things we do everyday, as well as the pollution in Lake St. Clair.
The Pollution Preventers team traveled back to our sites on December 20th, 2011 to collect BIF and EVA. When collecting the EVA plates, we had to be very delicate and use tin foil to handle them. We used tin foil to create a barrier between our fingers and the plates to avoid contamination. In addition, tin foil was used to handle the plates because we were not testing for metals- only organic compounds. If we were to use Saran Wrap to handle the plates, there was risk of contamination since there might be a type of organic compound in the Saran Wrap. Using tin foil, we re-wrapped the EVA plates to be sent back to the University of Connecticut to be analyzed by Dr. Penny Vlahos.
Each trip that we took, we recorded our experience by taking photos, as well as recordings of water temperature, dissolved oxygen, and pH (see attached photos). We took these recording to ensure that there were no drastic changes in the water over a week. Once the plates were sent out, we began working on our mission folder.
Our Plan to Complete Mission FolderIn order to complete our Mission Folder, we decided to meet every Wednesday morning with our team advisor. She would assign certain questions for us to answer and then we would turn them in the following Wednesday. Each time, we would discuss the questions beforehand; then once turned in and she read through them, we would discuss them again, editing the questions as we discussed. That way, everyone was on the same page, and understood what the questions were asking. The Pollution Preventers kept in touch via phone, school and e-mail. Each week we would also talk about what we learned and have researched online.
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