Rough Draft of the Final Report

Lab 2 – Water Quality and Contamination

Experiment 1: Drinking Water Quality

Bottled water is a billion dollar industry in the United States. Still, few people know the health benefits, if any, that come from drinking bottled water as opposed to tap water. This experiment will look at the levels of a variety of different chemical compounds in both tap and bottled water to determine if there are health benefits in drinking bottled water.

POST-LAB QUESTIONS

1. Develop a hypothesis regarding which water sources you believe will contain the most and least contaminants, and state why you believe this. Be sure to clearly rank all three sources from most to least contaminants.

Hypothesis = If bottled water is a billion-dollar industry in the United States then it must contain less chemicals, if any, that come from my local tap water and should be healthier. I think that Fiji water will contain the least amount of contaminants because the water is bottled at the source. It is bottled from an artesian aquifer and remains untouched by man (FijiWater.com). An artesian aquifer is essentially a well that is in particular geologic layer that stores water. Following the Fiji water, I think that the Dasani water will contain more contaminants than the Fiji water but less than my local tap water because Dasani is simply purified water. Dasani’s purified water is purified using reverse osmosis then minerals are added in after the purification process (Dasani.com). Finally, I think that my local tap water will contain the greatest amount of contaminants because there is no purification system in place.

1. Based on the results of your experiment, would accept or reject the hypothesis you produced in question 1? Explain how you determined this.

Accept/reject = Based on the results of the experiment I would reject the hypothesis that I produced in question 1 because the Fiji Bottled Water contained the same amount of chlorine and hardness and the bottled Dasani water contained no hardness or chlorine. In addition, the Fiji Bottled Water had the highest amount of phosphate present followed by my local tap water then the Dasani Bottled Water. As far as the iron test the Dasani water and Fiji water was the same and my local tap water had .15 ppm of iron present in its water. Finally, pH results showed that Dasani had the least amount of pH present followed by Fiji then my local tap water. In conclusion, the Dasani Bottled Water was proven to have the least amount of contaminants.

1. Based on the results of your experiment, what specific differences do you notice among the Dasani®, Fiji®, and Tap Water?

Answer = Based on the results of this experiment I noticed that water that the Fiji Bottled Water and my tap water almost the same amount of contaminants. Surprisingly, the Dasani Bottled Water that is just purified tap water had the least amount of contaminants even with the minerals added in the water after the purification process.

1. Based upon the fact sheets provided (links at the end of this document), do any of these samples pose a health concern? Use evidence from the lab to support your answer.

Answer = Based on Mastroianni’s article “Testing for Chlorine in Drinking Water”, drinking too much chlorinated water may impose the health risk of bladder cancer (Mastroianni,2011). As far as Hardness, poses no known health concerns, on the contrary hardness in drinking water may be “associated with lower incidents of heart disease” (New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services, 2008)

1. Based on your results, do you believe that bottled water is worth the price? Use evidence from the lab to support your opinion.

Answer =Based on my results, I believe that bottled water is worth the price, but the source of water and process of purification should be kept in mind because you may be drinking water that contains more contaminants than the local tap water. As shown in the results of this experiment there is not much difference between the Fiji Bottled Water and my local tap water. In this instance, the Dasani Bottled Water would be worth the price to protect my body from impurities and other contaminants.

**NOTE: Be sure to complete steps 1 - 32 of Lab 3, Experiment 1 (the next lab) before completing your work for this week. Lab 3 involves growing plants, and if the work is not started this week, your seeds will not have time to grow and the lab will not be finished on time.**

FACT SHEETS

Ammonia https://www.wqa.org/Portals/0/Technical/Technical%20Fact%20Sheets/2014_Ammonia.pdf

Chloride

http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/dwq/chloride.pdf

Phosphate

http://osse.ssec.wisc.edu/curriculum/earth/Minifact2_Phosphorus.pdf

Iron

http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/dwq/chemicals/iron.pdf

pH https://www.watersystemscouncil.org/download/wellcare_information_sheets/potential_groundwater_contaminant_information_sheets/9709284pH_Update_September_2007.pdf

Alkalinity

https://www.safewater.org/PDFS/communitywatertestkit/Water_Quality_Tests.pdf

Chlorine

http://www.watertechonline.com/testing-for-chlorine-in-drinking-water/

Hardness

http://des.nh.gov/organization/commissioner/pip/factsheets/dwgb/documents/dwgb-3-6.pdf

References

Any sources utilized should be listed here.

© eScience Labs, 2016