You are required to develop an outline for your Final Lab Report, which covers all three experiments for “Lab 2: Water Quality and Contamination.” To begin, carefully review the instructions for your Final Lab Report assignment located within Week Five. Next, download the Outline of the Final Lab Report Template and utilize this form to ensure proper formatting and inclusion of all required material. Note that the outline should be written in paragraph form and should not simply be a list of bullet points. Using the template will ensure proper formatting. You must use at least four scholarly sources and your lab manual to support your points. The outline 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, located within the Learning Resources tab on the left navigation toolbar.
The Outline 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 outline 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.
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Water quality and contamination Lab Report
Abstract
Contaminants are the main cause of the various qualities of water across the world. Water becomes contaminated in various ways due to different contaminants. The effect of a contaminant in water is through by either altering the smell, color or both. The report indicates the effect of laundry detergent, vinegar, and oil on the smell and color of the water. It also try to investigate whether filtration is a method that can be used to remove dissolved contaminants in the water. Finally, the report illustrates whether the there are much differences between tap water and bottled water. Finally the report analysis the results and give an conclusion on water quality and contamination.
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Introduction
A contaminant in water may be possibly being any substance except that is dissolved in water which could be damaging (Laws, 2000). The dosed of contaminants in the water determine the quality of water. Water is a strangely high-quality solvent, therefore, numerous diverse kinds of substances can dissolve in it. Apart from in assured controlled laboratory environment, what we believe of as water is by no means 100 percent water. For instance, naturally in the works gases for example oxygen and CO2 will liquefy into the water (Allens and Robert, 2001). The composition of underground water in natural environment reflects the astounds and soils in the course of which water has gone through, the living things existing in or close to the water, and people activities. A contaminant may affect water in various ways depending on its concentrations and its effect it has on an individual and other living organisms (Allens and Robert, 2001). Research has shown that most contaminants affect the quality of water by affecting either its smell, color or both. The aim of carrying out experiment 1 is to investigate the effect and how contaminants like oil, vinegar and laundry detergents. However, the aim for experiment 2 was to investigate the effectiveness of filtration as a technique of removing contaminations in water. Finally, experiment 3 main aim was to determine factors that determine the quality of drinking water. The hypotheses of the three experiments were:
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Experiment 1 hypotheses
- Laundry detergent has the furthermost consequence on contaminating ground water since it alters the color and dominates the smell
- Since vinegar mixes together well with water it only pollutes the smell
- Since the smell didn’t change, oil has little consequences on polluting groundwater.
Experiment 2
- If filtration techniques are used to remove contaminants, contaminants will be removed.
Experiment 3
- Tap water contains more contaminants then bottled water.
Material and methods
To carry out, experiment 1, eight beakers were filled with water, first beaker nothing was added so it acted as control of the experiment. The second beaker was added with oil and the third one with a small amount of vinegar. The fourth beaker was added with strong detergent and fifth, sixth and seventh beakers were added with oil. The last beaker was added with a slight detergent. The mixers were well checked and the smell and color of the mixer recorded.
In experiment 2, the mixers in the eight beakers were filtered one at a time with a cheese cloth and the color and smell of the mixer noted.
In experiment 3, three water samples were taken to test the quality of drinking water. The three water samples were: tap water, Dasani bottled water, and Fiji bottled water. For each sample, a test of level of ammonia, chloride, phosphate, and iron were carried out and the result recorded on a table. Apart from these tests, a four in one test was carried out to investigate PH, Alkalinity, chlorine and total hardness of the samples and the results were recorded.
Results
The observations made were recorded as follow:
Results for experiment 1
| Beaker | Observations |
| 1 | No smell; no color |
| 2 | No smell; light color |
| 3 | Slight vinegar smell; no color |
| 4 | Strong detergent smell; light blue color |
| 5 | No smell |
| 6 | No smell |
| 7 | No smell |
| 8 | Slight detergent smell |
Results for experiment 2
The smell and the color of the mixer did not change after filtration was done.
Results for experiment 3
| Ammonia | Chloride | Phosphate | Iron | PH | Alkalinity | Chlorine | Total hardeness | |
| Tap water | 0 | 500 | 10 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 10 | Very hard |
| Dasani bottled water | 0 | 500 | 10 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Very soft |
| Fiji bottled water | 0 | 500 | 10 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 10 | Very soft |
It was observed that detergent had both effect on the color and the smell of water while oil had slight effect on the color of the water. On the other hand, vinegar had an effect on smell but had no effect on the color. In experiment two the filtration did not remove the contaminations that were in the water. Finally in experiment 3, it was difficult to tell the difference the three samples but it was clear that Dasani water had a chlorine level of zero while others had ten.
Discussion
It is clear that the, although the vinegar and oil had the lowest effect on the quality of water, they have serious side effect when consumed by living organisms. Though the laundry detergent had effect on both the color and smell, it has the least effect on human being. Therefore, in this experiment my two hypotheses were rejected while one was accepted.
The process of purification consists of various stages with filtration being one of them used to remove some contaminants. This is the main reason why purification cannot be a method of removing contaminants from the water and this made my hypothesis to be rejected. Finally, in experiment 3, the three samples seemed similar except on the level of chlorine which gave them a big difference. This made Dasani water to seem the best water for human consumption than the other samples. In the three experiments, it was only laundry hypothesis that was accepted but others were rejected as it was proven through experiment not agreeing. In addition, it was hard to determine the difference between tap water and bottled water which called for research to be done so as to determine the worth of bottled water.
Conclusion
It is very important to know that not the color and smell of the water determines the concentration of a contaminant as indicated in experiment one. In a addition, not all method used to remove contaminants is effective, purification require steps. Finally, it is clear that it is hard to tell the difference of quality of drinking water taking into account of tap water and bottled water.
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