Students in Ms. Diane Winter’s chemistry class at Pacifica High School in Oxnard, California conducted one Filtration: No Dirt, No Germs experiment before participating in a live webinar. During the webcast, ACS and NASA scientists at Johnson Space Center performed the same experiment and discussed how it relates to water purification on earth and on NASA’s International Space Station.
Ms. Winter’s class created this presentation for their fellow students.
ACS partnered with World Water Monitoring Day (WWMD) on Sept. 19 to celebrate IYC 2011 on Hains Point, in Washington, D.C. ACS Chemistry Ambassadors helped 250 local students measure the pH of the Potomac River and compare it to that of bottled water.
As part of the International Year of Chemistry, teachers, students, scouts, and others participated in what may be the world’s biggest chemistry experiment ever! Water: A Chemical Solution comprised four activities to analyze and treat local water from streams, rivers, lakes, the ocean, or even tap water.
This lesson taught students about acidity, a common chemical property. They used colorful indicators—bromothymol blue and m-cresol purple—to measure the pH of a local water source.
Students used either a homemade or commercial meter to measure the conductivity of water samples. They also learned about salts and determined concentrations of salts in solutions.
More about the Acidity experiment from IYC.
In the filtration activity, students used household materials to build a water filtration unit and identify the efficiency of different filtration materials. Then, they carried out a treatment of the water using hypochlorite bleach.
More about the Filtration experiment from IYC.
Students explored an alternative way of purifying water using a solar still, learning about the distillation process and the states of matter. The activity provided students with the opportunity to design and build more efficient stills.
More about the Filtration experiment from IYC.
Email us at IYCwaterproject@acs.org.
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