Student Research Reports

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If the Ottawa River is cleaner, the water will have a higher dissolved oxygen concentration and a pH of around 7 because fewer chemicals harm these processes. Our project is to collect data to see how the river is changing. We collected data on the Ottawa River for four days. We used pH sticks to measure the pH to see if there was pollution because pollution affects the pH level of bodies of water. Then we use a dissolved oxygen kit to collect the dissolved oxygen to see if fish could thrive in our river. From our data, we can infer that the river is improving when compared to historical data. We found out that the river changes rapidly. It can change vastly by day, location, and weather. In conclusion, we infer that the Ottawa River is improving, but it is hard to tell with the rapid changes in the river. If we were to do this again, we would collect more data to hopefully see a pattern.