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Environmental Chemistry
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Imagine your classes studying environmental chemistry - not from a textbook, a video or even a bus - but while actually floating by raft to study sites along their nearest local river!
The study of environmental chemistry is as close as the nearest river! RiverWatch provides an authentic and generative science experience that helps students answer the question:
"Is this river healthy?"
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RiverWatch students conduct quantitative tests that measure key substances in the environment. A day on the river with RiverWatch addresses the following curriculum topics…
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Chemistry Safety
Even though RiverWatch is conducted outside of a traditional lab setting, all lab safety procedures are still followed. Students wear eye goggles and disposable gloves while handling chemicals. Eyewash bottles and a first-aid kit are always on hand. Garbage is picked-up and all liquid wastes are collected for proper disposal.
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Chemical Change
Students understand that chemistry involves the formation of new compounds with a resulting change in color, temperature, solubility or gas formation. Color changes are witnessed during RiverWatch testing for pH, ammonia nitrogen, phosphates and dissolved oxygen. A precipitate is formed during the dissolved oxygen test.
Acid Base Theory
RiverWatch uses a test for dissolved oxygen that involves a final acid-base titration with an endpoint change from a yellow to a clear solution. Additional acid-base theory comes into play during the measurement and analysis of pH levels.
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The Impact of Phosphates
Phosphate is a limiting factor in the growth of plants. Without adequate phosphate, plants cannot process available nitrogen. With too much phosphate, plant and algal growth is accelerated. The resulting explosion of green growth eventually dies and decomposition by bacteria may reduce dissolved oxygen to levels that kill fish. Where does that extra phosphate originate?
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Water Quality Monitoring
RiverWatch opens a whole new world to students. At each shoreline study site, students collect water quality data through the use of portable testing kits that measure such concentrations as:
- pH
- dissolved oxygen
- phosphates
- nitrogen
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Biological Monitoring
RiverWatch uses the relative abundance of various invertebrate species as an indicator of environmental quality. Chemicals may wash through a river relatively quickly, but their effect will remain preserved in the numbers and types of invertebrate organisms that survive. In essence, the invertebrates function as bio-indicators of chemical concentrations.
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Chemical Engineering Technology
RiverWatch provides all the expertise and equipment to float classes to study sites above and below a nutrient point-source such as a sewage treatment outfall. Classes also tour through a water treatment facility to observe the latest in chemical engineering technology before rafting downstream to measure the effectiveness of that technology.
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