I have 2 short environmental biology labs this week. I attached the questions and the power point that goes with the second one.

I have 2 short environmental biology labs this week. I attached the questions and the power point that goes with the second one.
pH and the Environment Lab Name________________________________________________ Background Information about pH pH is a measure of how acidic something is. View the Power Point and answer the following questions. What is the pH scale? What are the measurements on the pH scale? What makes a substance acidic? What makes a substance basic? What is a neutral substance? Solution A has a pH of 3. Solution B has a pH of 10. Which solution is more acidic? ________ Give an example of an acidic substance. ________________________________ Give an example of a basic substance. _________________________________ Why is pH important in the environment? Pollution or contaminants can alter the pH of water in an aquatic ecosystem or even the pH of precipitation. Go to the following website: https://www.epa.gov/caddis-vol2/caddis-volume-2-sources-stressors-responses-ph#lowchecklist Read the information provided to answer the following questions. According to the website, “the pH of water determines the solubility and biological availability of chemical constituents.” What is solubility? What does biological availability mean? What kind of chemical constituents are they referring to? Are metals more toxic at a higher or lower pH?_______________________ Why are metals more toxic at that pH level? How do you measure pH? You can use a pH meter to measure pH. Here is an example of a pH meter. The probe of the meter is placed into the solution of which you want to measure the pH. The screen shows the pH of the solution is 5.00. Now you are going to practice using a pH meter to obtain the pH of different solutions. Go to the following website: https://phet.colorado.edu/sims/html/ph-scale/latest/ph-scale_en.html Click on Macro You see that you have 0.5 L of water in your container. You can click on the red button of the dropper at the top of the page to add more solution to your container. Add a little bit more water to the container by clicking on the red button of the dropper. You can also add more solution by clicking on the blue handle on the right side of the screen. Add more water to your container by clicking on the blue handle. You can remove some of the solution by clicking on the blue handle at the bottom left of your container. Click on this blue handle to remove some of the water. Now you are ready to take the pH measurement. The round green thing is the probe of your pH meter. Put the green probe into the container with the water by dragging it to the container. Notice that you get a pH reading when you do this. What is the pH of the water?__________ Now you are going to change the solutions in your container. Do this by clicking on the down arrow next to the box that says water. You will see a wide variety of solutions to choose from. Pick three different solutions and determine their pH. Solution 1 is ________________________________. pH is ___________. Solution 2 is ________________________________. pH is ___________. Solution 3 is ________________________________. pH is ___________. Acid Precipitation Acid precipitation is when rain, snow, or sleet is acidic when it falls to the ground. Dry acidic particles can also fall to the ground. Go to the following website: https://www.epa.gov/acidrain/what-acid-rain Read the page and answer the questions below. Questions: What is acid rain? Explain how is it formed. Explain the difference between wet and dry deposition. How do fossil fuels impact the formation of acid rain? How do winds impact acid rain? Go to the bottom of the page and click on Effects of acid rain. In what type of environments are the effects of acid rain most clearly seen? How are fish eggs affected by acidic precipitation? How are plants and trees impacted by acid rain? What does the buffering capacity of forests, streams, and lakes depend upon? Besides acid rain, explain two other effects of sulfure dioxide and nitrous oxide.
I have 2 short environmental biology labs this week. I attached the questions and the power point that goes with the second one.
Drinking Water Contamination Lab Name________________________________________________ Drinking water contamination is a major concern all over the world. Without safe drinking water, humans cannot survive. The EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) monitors drinking water in the U.S. for contaminants. “EPA has drinking water regulations for more than 90 contaminants. The Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) includes a process that EPA must follow to identify and list unregulated contaminants. This process may lead to development of a national primary drinking water regulation (NPDWR) in the future. EPA must periodically publish this list of contaminants (called the Contaminant Candidate List or CCL) and decide whether to regulate at least five or more contaminants on the list (called regulatory determination).  A regulatory determination is a formal decision on whether EPA should initiate a rulemaking process to develop an NPDWR for a specific contaminant.” (EPA 2020) This lab has two parts to it. For the first part you will enter your zip code into the Environmental Working Group’s (EWG) database to see what contaminants have been found in your area. Then you will watch a video about the drinking water contamination that took place in Flint, MI. Procedure Part 1 Go to the EWG tap water database website: https://www.ewg.org/tapwater/ Enter your zip code in the database. My zip code is: _________________ Select the water utility for your area. What is the water utility for your area?_____________________________ Look on the right side of the screen. It states the Utility Details. Fill them in below. Utility Details Location:__________________ Serves:___________________ Data Available:_____________ Source:___________________ Scroll down to see Contaminants Detected to answer the following questions. How many contaminants are detected?__________ How many contaminants exceed EWG health guidelines?___________ How long has it been since legal contaminants in tap water have been updated?__________ What is the best way to ensure clean tap water?____________________ Scroll down to see the contaminants. List the contaminants and their possible effects found in your area (if any) that exceed EWG health guidelines. Choose one of the contaminants and click on details. Answer the following questions. Contaminant__________________ What level was it found at for that utility?_________________ What is the EWG health guideline level?_________________ What is the legal limit?_________________ What is the national average?______________ What is the state average?________________ What are the pollution sources?______________ What are the filtering options?_______________ Is the contaminant level breaking any laws? Choose one other contaminant and answer the following questions. Contaminant__________________ What level was it found at for that utility?_________________ What is the EWG health guideline level?_________________ What is the legal limit?_________________ What is the national average?______________ What is the state average?________________ What are the pollution sources?______________ What are the filtering options?_______________ Is the contaminant level breaking any laws? Questions 1.Were you surprised by the number of contaminants in your area? Why or why not? 2.The contaminant levels you found probably are not breaking any laws. Do you think you should be concerned about the levels listed if they are not above the legal limit? Why or why not? EXPLAIN! 3.Click on the 3 lines next to the Menu button on the EWG website and select Pollution Sources. Read that information to answer the following questions. What contaminants are a result of agriculture? What contaminants are a result of industry? What contaminants result from urban areas and urban sprawl? What is urban sprawl? (if you don’t know, you might have to look this up) 4. Are any contaminants naturally occurring? How do humans impact these naturally occurring contaminants? Give an example. Procedure Part 2 – Video Now you will watch a video about the lead contamination in Flint, MI. There is a link posted on Blackboard called Poisoned Water on Nova. It is a lengthy video (almost an hour) but it’s interesting. Watch the video and answer the following questions. 1.What was the new water source that Flint switched to? 2.Why did the city switch water sources? 3.Why is a coagulant used to treat water? 4.Why did General Motors stop using the Flint River water? 5.What is the EPA’s lead and copper rule? 6.Lead can disrupt brain growth. What age group is most affected by high lead levels? 7.Most plumbing pipes contain lead. Why aren’t more people affected by the lead from the pipes? What is scale? 8.What is corrosion control treatment? Was Flint using this treatment? 9.How did Flint’s corrosive water affect the scale on the pipes? What happened to the lead in the pipe? 10.What were some symptoms people were exhibiting in Flint? 11.Has Washington D.C. experienced lead contamination in water? 12.Describe the lead contamination in D.C. water. How did it occur? 13.To analyze lead levels in Flint, MI, researchers from Virginia Tech used “citizen science” to collect data. What is meant by “citizen science”? 14.What were Virginia Tech’s findings about the lead results in Flint? 15.The state’s testing protocols for lead testing were different than that used by Virginia Tech and the results were lower lead levels. How did the state of Michigan water testing protocols differ from that of Virginia Tech? 16.What type of study did a pediatrician do in Flint, MI that helped prove lead contamination in the water? Describe the study. 17.Did the state of Michigan believe the pediatric study findings? 18. How did legionella bacteria survive in the Flint water? 19.Who was held responsible for the water contamination and cover up? 20.What do you think? Were you aware of the contamination in Flint before watching this video? Are you surprised that this happened? If you lived in Flint, would you trust the city if they told you that the water is now safe to use?