Chemistry IA on Water Pollution - Good or Bad?

[Lookingatthemoon22]

​Hello,

 

​I am doing SL Chemistry and I really would like to do my IA on water quality. By this I am thinking of measuring the nitrate ion concentration or the amount of pesticide on the quality of water to see if more of the ions would make the water more polluted or not.  With that said though, I am having a hard time coming up with what the dependant variable should be and now I am thinking if I should do something else for my IA instead, since it may be difficult to measure.

 

Would doing a IA on water pollution be realistic or should I just do something else?

 

Any help would be much appreciated!  Thanks in regards

 

[Tom Hiddleston]

The difficulty to measure part will most likely be the biggest hurdle that you will have to face as high school labs are usually not well-equipped enough for many experiments that we'd like to do. However, your dependant variable would be how much pollution based on how you define pollution. Things such how fast an algae bloom occurred or the turbidity of the water.

 

It's a very nice application IA which IB will definitely like since it relates to real life. But it'll all depend on the level of equipment that you're able to access.

 

Hope everything works out X

[Siddhakshi]

Agreed, it's relatively difficult to obtain the apparatus we require for a lab. In terms of this topic, if you get an test kit, it will be easy to get the respective contents of N, P, K and Cl ions which is probably what you'll be looking for in a polluted water body. One thing to remember is that this is a chemistry IA, not ESS or biology. The students in my class have done their ESS labs on similar grounds (pollution, etc.) so it's easy to get swayed towards another subject. It's a good topic, but be very clear and specific when it comes to its chemistry, otherwise you will be penalized.

[Tom Hiddleston]

Agreed, it's relatively difficult to obtain the apparatus we require for a lab. In terms of this topic, if you get an test kit, it will be easy to get the respective contents of N, P, K and Cl ions which is probably what you'll be looking for in a polluted water body. One thing to remember is that this is a chemistry IA, not ESS or biology. The students in my class have done their ESS labs on similar grounds (pollution, etc.) so it's easy to get swayed towards another subject. It's a good topic, but be very clear and specific when it comes to its chemistry, otherwise you will be penalized.

 

Emphasis on focus in addition to the clarity and specificity on chemistry. Chemistry is the middle science so it is easy to wander, but easier to catch when you wander.

[Lookingatthemoon22]

Thank you, you guys brought up some good points that I did not even consider

 

My teacher said the same thing about how I should not wander away from the chemistry aspect since I am doing it on pollution too. So, I decided to focus on the Nitrate ion concentration on samples of water more so than on the water quality. Also, my teacher said I should go out and actually collect all the data from the streams and lakes, since that would need less equipment and it would be much easier to work with too. Thanks for bringing that up 

[Guziec]

The first thing to do when planning group 4 IAs is finding or designing a procedure and then consulting your teacher, to see if this is possible in your school's lab. When it comes to the water pollution aspect, IMO it would be great for introduction and explaining why you got interested for the topic, but not for the topic of the whole investigation.