Results: Since there is no Canadian Drinking Water Guideline for Ammonia you will compare results to the European Union limit. The standard should give a result very close to the 0.5 mg/L colour; if the colour is darker then it DOES NOT meet the guidelines.
To allow students to run tests on five different sources of water. Students are expected to collect three samples of water: Urban and Rural (includes Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal communities) treated waters, and a Raw Source Water.
1. One bottle contains 5 micrograms/L arsenic. Put 100 mL of water sample in the second plastic bottle with lid (not the flip top type). Water should be room temperature (20-25 degrees C).
Students enter their results for the tests: alkalinity, ammonia, colour, copper, pH, sulphate, total chlorine, and total hardness. Students compare their results to the Guidelines for Canadian Drinking Water Quality.
1. Put the students into groups of 3-5. 2. Provide the students with the "Not In My Backyard?" handout. 3. Have the students define the problem and determine what they know about the problem, what they need to learn more about, and where they need to look to find information. 4. Groups conduct research, find information, and work towards deciding what they should do. The teacher acts as a metacognitive coach, serving as a model.
1. The first thing you are going to want to do with your Operation Water Drop kit is to use it. Test the water samples you have been given and your local drinking water (as well as three other water samples such as urban, rural and raw water, in the case of High School Operation Water Drop kits) with the kit’s contents. Record these test results.
Tips and advice regarding how to use the High School Operation Water Drop kit in your classroom. There are two methods to go about it - in one method different groups of students test for different components in all of the water samples, in the other method each group of students tests for all of the different components in one water sample.
There is no Canadian Drinking Water Guideline for Alkalinity in drinking water, but it is an important characteristic of the water and if your local community water is less than the LLS then the water may be quite corrosive, which may result in increased levels of copper and lead leached out from household plumbing.
Copper is naturally present in the environment, but the levels of contamination can be increased around agricultural land (manure spreading), near smelting facilities, and phosphate fertilizer plants, there is also significant amounts of copper released from wastewater treatment plants. The copper piping in most buildings that we consume water from also can contribute to our intake, depending on the corrosiveness of the water.
The direct health implications of iron are very limited, there are however indirect problems some of which are: colour, which comes from iron in a particulate form which is too small to filter so you get “coloured water”, iron bacteria, this is when bacteria and iron form a slime which can lead to poor pipe flow, this can occur when the iron concentration exceeds 0.3 mg/L, the Canadian Drinking Water Guideline (CGLS).
