How can we Combine our Knowledge of Chemistry and Water?
Our MissionThis project grew out of a different driving question:
How can we use Chemistry to support the chemical treatment of wastewater and various clean water initiatives? This was broadened to indicate that we could do practically anything regarding chemistry and water. The end result was to present at the North Bay Science Fair, as part of a display on water.
Due to the far reaching ideas that could be used, we had to narrow down our topic. We decided that we wanted to have a broad focus, and on more topics than just chemistry. Some of us had also been inspired by a recent trip to Houston, and its Johnson Space Center. As a result, we decided to look at the use of water in space. To establish a concrete, but not yet functioning idea, we picked the concept of growing plants in space. We analyzed current proposals and experiments to synthesize information for our project. |
Our Brainstorm |
Solutions
.A solution is a homogenous mixture in the same state. The solute are particles dissolved in the solvent. A solution where the solvent is water is referred to as an aqueous solution. The amount of solute than can be dissolved is called its solubility, and can be affected by temperature, agitation, pressure (gasses), and the polarity (or non-polarity) of the mixture.
Acids and Bases
Acids: With metals, it reacts to form H2, and with bases it forms water and a salt. It can conduct an electrical current.
Bases: React with acids to form salt and water, and can conduct and electrical current.
pH scale: A 14-0 scale that determines how acidic or how basic a solution is, with a pH of 7 as neutral, pH < 7 is acidic, as pH > 7 is basic. A value of 7 is neutral.
For our purposes, acids are proton donors, and bases are proton receptors, using the Arrhenius definition.
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Bases: React with acids to form salt and water, and can conduct and electrical current.
pH scale: A 14-0 scale that determines how acidic or how basic a solution is, with a pH of 7 as neutral, pH < 7 is acidic, as pH > 7 is basic. A value of 7 is neutral.
For our purposes, acids are proton donors, and bases are proton receptors, using the Arrhenius definition.
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Plants for Dummies
Aeroponics: Plants are suspended in air, while nutrient solution is delivered as a fine mist.
Hydroponics: Plants are grown in sand, gravel, or liquid, with nutrients, and without soil.
Aquaponics: Plants are grown by taking advantage of the plant-fish ecosystem, where wasted produced by farmed fish supplies nutrients for hydroponically grown plants, purifying the water.
Vertical Farming: plant growth in either vertically stacked layers or inclined surfaces for horizontal plant-space efficiency.
Hydroponics: Plants are grown in sand, gravel, or liquid, with nutrients, and without soil.
Aquaponics: Plants are grown by taking advantage of the plant-fish ecosystem, where wasted produced by farmed fish supplies nutrients for hydroponically grown plants, purifying the water.
Vertical Farming: plant growth in either vertically stacked layers or inclined surfaces for horizontal plant-space efficiency.
Water Purification
Reverse Osmosis: Aided passive transport of solution through a semipermeable membrane from high concentration to low concentration.
Particle Separation: Chemical coagulation (clumping), flocculation (mixing and conglomeration of previous clumps), sedimentation (collected particles settle, leaving clear water), disinfection (chlorine treatment to kill bacteria, pathogens, and viruses), filtration (straining water through different sizes of filters).
Particle Separation: Chemical coagulation (clumping), flocculation (mixing and conglomeration of previous clumps), sedimentation (collected particles settle, leaving clear water), disinfection (chlorine treatment to kill bacteria, pathogens, and viruses), filtration (straining water through different sizes of filters).
Other Processes
Calcination: Clay is heated to a very high temperature to create a porous structure that can be used for our purposes.
Photosynthesis: The process by which plants use the engery from light to convert Carbon Dioxide and Water to Glucose and Oxygen.
Photosynthesis: The process by which plants use the engery from light to convert Carbon Dioxide and Water to Glucose and Oxygen.
Capillary Action
This project left pretty much everything up to us. From the topic to the level of complexity, myself and my peers controlled the process and result. This necessitated building a consensus around a single topic, which is not easy to do. We had to make decisions on if we should build a model, or what focus we wanted to laser in on. The result proves that we were able to collaborate, and listen to each other and our wants. A specific example is in the subsection of our presentation devoted to capillary action. A member in our group wanted to explore some of the physics behind being in space, and so we adapted our project focus to include that.
A second strength in our group was our ability to communicate. This is broken down into two categories. The first is our digital literacy. We were able to pull sources from the internet that strengthened our presentation, from scientific journals to aeroponics advertisements, from NASA articles to farming guides. The contributions of every member can be multiplied by the information that each one found. The second part of communication that our group exemplified was our peer-to-peer communication. As shown by the earlier example, we took into account individual learning objectives and cobbled together a wide-ranging research area. Personally, I worked with others in the group to formulate our driving question, making it broad enough that it would allow for all the necessary exploration, but specific enough to keep us in line.
That is not to say that there were not any issues with our group. Despite the intense communication within the group, a couple of essential items fell through the cracks with regards to our self-management. The primary issue with the group was our prioritization of tasks. We started out, and had a CAD model of our project. It was our intention to print it, and display it as a main part of our presentation. We, therefore, devoted a substantial chunk of time to something that was not really necessary. We obtained the same result with images of our model pasted into our presentation. Thinking through our project to the end purpose before being blinded by a pretty cool toy would have helped us.
A more personal failure was one of critical thinking. I, along with my group, was primarily focused on putting together the information that we found. In doing so, we missed a lot of things. There were previous experiments that had usable results, but in our rush to create a unique plan, we overlooked the synthesis aspect that is essential to any project. This is probably the largest factor that lead to our group not being able to provide a new perspective to the problem (combined with the fact that we were trying to solve a problem that NASA was having trouble with).