Natural Science Guru
Rough Draft of the Final Lab Report
You are required to develop a rough draft for your Final Lab Report, which covers all three experiments from the Week Two Lab assignment “Lab 2: Water Quality and Contamination.” This rough draft must also be reviewed using the Grammarly tool from the Writing Center to help you identify and correct any mistakes to your rough draft. Be sure to submit the Grammarly report and the corrected rough draft to the Week Three Assignment box.
Complete the following steps to submit both reports:
- Carefully read the instructions for your Final Lab Report assignment located within Week Five.
- Download the Rough Draft of the Final Lab Report Template and utilize this form to ensure correct formatting and inclusion of all required material.
- Use at least four scholarly sources and your lab manual to support your points.
- The rough draft must be three to five pages in length (excluding title and reference pages) and formatted according to APA style. For information regarding APA samples and tutorials, visit the Ashford Writing Center.
- Use the Grammarly tool to review your paper before submitting it for grading. Grammarly is an online tool offered by Ashford University to help you quickly identify errors and learn from your mistakes in order to create professionally written work.
- Review the Grammarly tutorial to learn how to set up and use Grammarly.
- Review the issues identified by Grammarly and make corrections to your work before submitting it to Waypoint for grading on Day 7.
- Save the Grammarly report as a PDF file and submit it along with your assignment. This means that you will submit two documents to Waypoint: the Grammarly report and your corrected rough draft.
Note: Please do not use www.grammarly.com to sign up as you will get limited feedback. Ashford University pays for additional fabulous Grammarly services so you don’t have to. If you encounter any problems or technical issues, please contact support@grammarly.com.
The Rough Draft of the Final Lab Report must contain the following seven sections in this order:
- Title Page – This page must include the title of your report, your name, course name, instructor, and date submitted.
- Introduction – This section should discuss why the experiment was conducted. At a minimum, it should contain three paragraphs. One paragraph must cover background information of similar studies that have already been done in the area. This is accomplished by citing existing literature from similar experiments and explaining their results. A second paragraph should provide an objective or a reason why the experiment is being done. Why do we want to know the answer to the question we are asking? A third paragraph should provide a hypothesis for each of the three experiments conducted.
- Materials and Methods – This section should provide a detailed description of the materials used in your experiment and how they were used. A step-by-step rundown of your experiment is necessary; however, it should be done in paragraph form, not in a list format. The description should be exact enough to allow for someone reading the report to replicate the experiment, but it should be in your own words and not simply copied and pasted from the lab manual.
- Results – This section should include the data and observations from the experiment. All tables and graphs should be present in this section. Additionally, there should be at least one paragraph explaining the data in paragraph form. There should be no personal opinions or discussion beyond the results of your experiments located within this section.
- Discussion – This section should interpret or explain the meaning of your data and provide conclusions. At least three paragraphs should be outlined here. First, a paragraph should be present that addresses whether the hypotheses were confirmed or denied and how you know this. Second, you are to discuss the meaning of your findings in this area utilizing scholarly sources to put the paper into context. For example, how do your results compare with the findings of similar studies? Also, you should discuss any future questions arising from your results and how you might test them. Finally, you should discuss if there are any outside factors (i.e., temperature, contaminants, time of day) that affected your results. If so, how could you control for these in the future?
- Conclusions – This section should provide a brief summary of your work.
- References – Provide a list of at least four scholarly sources and your lab manual that will be used in the Final Lab Report. Format your references according to APA style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center
Lab 2 – Water Quality and Contamination
Experiment 1: Effects of Groundwater Contamination
Table 1: Water Observations (Smell, Color, Etc.) Beaker Observations 1 Clear water without any kind of smells and particles. 2 I notice a slight change in color but I could smell vegetable oil. After stirring the oil. It settled on top of the water surface and there were some bubbles. 3 Vinegar mixed in water easily. Didn’t notice any change in color, but there was a strong smell of vinegar. 4 Laundry detergent was mixed well in the water. A slight change in color but there was a strong smell of detergent. There were also small bubbles on top of the water surface. 5 The water color changed from clear to brown. There were dirt particles at the bottom of the beaker. And there was also a light odor in the water. 6 Color changed from foggy to brown, there were also dirt particles at the bottom. Almost 90% of oil was filtered through the soil lined funnel. 7 The water color was the lightest in beaker 7 out of the last 2 beakers. There were dirt particles at the bottom. The smell of vinegar was reduced in comparison to before filtration through soil. 8 The water color in beaker 8 was the darkest of all beakers. There were dirt particles at the bottom. The laundry detergent smell was still apparent. POST LAB QUESTIONS
1. Develop hypotheses on the ability of oil, vinegar, and laundry detergent to contaminate groundwater.
a. Oil hypothesis = If I put a mixture of potting soil and oil, then it will make ground water contaminated.
b. Vinegar hypothesis = If I put a mixture of potting soil and vinegar together, then it will make ground water contaminated.
c. Laundry detergent hypothesis = If I put a mixture of potting soil and laundry detergent, then it will make ground water contaminated.
2. Based on the results of your experiment, would you reject or accept each hypothesis that you produced in question 1? Explain how you determined this.
a. Oil hypothesis accept/reject = Based on the experiment I will accept the hypothesis. The experiment proved that if the oil is not disposed of properly it will contaminate ground water.
b. Vinegar hypothesis accept/reject = Based on the experiment I will reject the hypothesis. The reason to reject this hypothesis is that, the filtration of water mixed with vinegar when filtered through soil it kept the smell. I don’t believe that the vinegar smell can be hazardous to human health.
c. Laundry detergent hypothesis accept/reject = Based on the experiment I will accept the hypothesis. The reason to accept this hypothesis is that, the filtration of water mixed with laundry detergent had the strong smell of laundry detergent that can contaminate ground water resources.
3. What effect did each of the contaminants have on the water in the experiment? Which contaminant seemed to have the most potent effect on the water?
Answer = I observed that all of the water samples have one similar result of turning the water color into brown and also dirt particles travel through the filtration process in all 4 beakers. I think vinegar and laundry detergent have the most potent effect on the water because even after going through the soil these two samples still hold on to the odor.
4. Using at least one scholarly source; discuss the potential effect of each contaminant (oil, vinegar, and detergent) on the town’s water source and the people who drank the water.
Answer = Answer = According to the CDC, “The presence of contaminates in water can lead to adverse health effects, including gastrointestinal illness, reproductive problems, and neurological disorders,” (CDC, 2014). There are about ten different illnesses associated with this type of contamination. Four of them are: giardia, salmonella, norovirus and Hepatitis A.
5. Describe what type of human activity would cause contaminants like oil, acid, and detergents to flow into the water supply. Additionally, what other items within your house do you believe could contaminate the water supply if you were to dump them onto the ground?
Answer = I think sometimes contamination of groundwater by humans are not intentional. Like when we pour down the cooking oil in to the sink grains it may end up in ground water. I have also notice oil marks in the parking leaking from the cars this can be a factor of contamination. We all must have noticed people washing cars in the apartment parking, where there is no proper way of disposing of the soap water in to the drains. On a daily basis we consciously or unconsciously do things that end up seeping into the ground and contaminate our water resources underground.
Experiment 2: Water Treatment
POST LAB QUESTIONS
1. Develop a hypothesis on the ability of your filtration technique to remove contaminants.
Hypothesis = If the water goes through the filtration process then it will be consumable.
2. Based on the results of your experiment, would you reject or accept the hypothesis that you produced in question 1? Explain how you determined this.
Accept/Reject = Based on the experiment I will reject the hypothesis. The filtered water was clean but I am not sure if it will be drinkable even after adding the bleach.
3. What are the differences in color, smell, visibility, and so forth between the “contaminated” water and the “treated” water?
Answer = The contaminated water is dirty, dark brown in color and also smells like dirt. There are big particles of dirt floating at the top of the water surface and particles at the bottom as well. The filtered water was yellowish in color and had a strong smell of bleach in it. There seem to be a small amount of particles at the bottom.
4. From the introduction to this lab, you know that there are typically five steps involved in the water treatment process. Identify the processes (e.g., coagulation) that were used in this lab. Additionally, describe how each of the processes were performed in this lab.
Answer =
First step is aeration where I added soil to the beaker and then transferred it back and forth between two beakers total of 15 times.
Second step was coagulation which is where I added the alum to the beaker of soil and water.
Sedimentation happened next during the 15-minute time allotted. The clumps sank to the bottom;
Then filtration happened when I poured the water through sand, gravel and activated charcoal.
Finally, disinfection took place when I added bleach to filtered water.
Experiment 3: Drinking Water Quality
Table 2: Ammonia Test Results Water Sample Test Results Tap Water 0 Dasani® Bottled Water 0 Fiji® Bottled Water 0 Table 3: Chloride Test Results Water Sample Test Results Tap Water 0 Dasani® Bottled Water 0 Fiji® Bottled Water 0 Table 4: 4 in 1 Test Results Water Sample pH Total Alkalinity Total Chlorine Total Hardness Tap Water 4 0 0.2 0 Dasani® Bottled Water 3 0 1.0 0 Fiji® Bottled Water 8 0 4.0 50 Table 5: Phosphate Test Results Water Sample Test Results Tap Water 10 Dasani® Bottled Water 50 Fiji® Bottled Water 100 Table 6: Iron Test Results Water Sample Test Results Tap Water 0 Dasani® Bottled Water 0 Fiji® Bottled Water 0 POST LAB QUESTIONS
1. Develop a hypothesis on which water source you believe will contain the most and least chemical components.
Hypothesis = If all three water samples of tap water, Dasani and Fiji are tested, then tap water will contain the most chemical components.
2. Based on the results of your experiment, would you reject or accept the hypothesis that you produced in question 1? Explain how you determined this.
Accept/reject = = I would reject my hypothesis. After testing, it was found that the tap water did not hold more contaminates than the bottled water. Fiji appeared to be more contaminated than the other two. For example, the Phosphate level of tap water was 10 in tap water but in Fiji water it was noticed up to 100 which is the highest according to the comparison chart.
3. Based on the results of your experiment, what major differences, if any, do you notice between the Dasani, Fiji, and tap water?
Answer = The Fiji water appeared to be on the top of hardness when compared to the chart and 4.0 in Chlorine Dasani water. After witnessing these results tap water seems to be the safest to drink.
4. Based on your results, do you believe that bottled water is worth the price? Why or why not?
Answer = I was not a big fan of bottled water anyways but after conducting these experiments I am positive that bottled water does not worth the price considering it contains more contaminates than tap water. I think that certain areas of tap water may test differently, so can be bottled water. I could save money using what is available to me for almost free compared to bottled water.
*NOTE – Do not forget to go to Lab 3: Biodiversity, and complete “Experiment 1: Diversity of Plants” steps 1 through 6. Steps 1 through 6 need to be completed in order to be prepared for Week Three, however, results for this experiment will not be calculated until next week. Thus, while nothing is to be handed in for this experiment until the end of Week Three you must plant the seeds this week to ensure that you can complete week 3 on time.
References
Contaminates in Public Water Systems. Retrieved from: http://www.cdc.gov/healthywater/drinking/public/water_diseases.html
Turk, J., & Bensel, T. (2014). Contemporary environmental issues (2nd ed.). San Diego, CA: Bridgepoint Education, Inc.
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