Teachers, students, scouts, and others: Participate in what may be the world’s biggest chemistry experiment ever, for IYC 2011! Water: A Chemical Solution has four activities to analyze and treat local water from streams, rivers, lakes, the ocean, or even tap water.
Adult leaders may submit their results for the activities from this page.
Students can view their results on a global, interactive map and compare them to others at http://water.chemistry2011.org.
Learn more about the four global water experiments!
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.
As one of only three schools chosen to participate in the webinar, Ms. Winter’s class was motivated to create 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.
This lesson teaches students about acidity, a common chemical property. They use colorful indicators—bromothymol blue and m-cresol purple—to measure the pH of a local water source. The process enforces good experimental techniques to test the reliability of their results.
Instructions | Submit Acidity Test Results
Students will use either a homemade or commercial meter to measure the conductivity of water samples. They will also learn about salts and determine concentrations of salts in solutions.
Instructions | Submit Filtration Test Results
More about the Acidity experiment from IYC.
In the filtration activity, students use household materials to build a water filtration unit and identify the efficiency of different filtration materials. Then, as a follow up, they will carry out a treatment of the water using hypochlorite bleach.
Instructions | Submit Filtration Test Results
More about the Filtration experiment from IYC.
Students will explore an alternative way of purifying water using a solar still, learning about the distillation process and the states of matter. The activity will provide students with the opportunity to design and build their own more efficient stills.
Instructions | Submit Filtration Test Results
More about the Filtration experiment from IYC.
Email us at IYCwaterproject@acs.org.
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