A Comparison of the Oxygen Levels in Mill Creek & Harrison Lake - 7th grade - 2020 SRS - 2020 SRS

Project Title: A Comparison of the Oxygen Levels in Mill Creek and Harrison Lake
School Name(s): Millcreek-West Unity (Hilltop) HS
Teacher Name(s): Abbie Smith
Student Name(s): Brooke Moreland
Grade Level: 7th grade
Abstract: This project was about the dissolved oxygen levels in Mill Creek and in Harrison Lake. Dissolved oxygen levels can be affected by the temperature of the water, algae blooms, the amount of sun that the water is exposed to, and other variables. Samples from Mill Creek and Harrison Lake were taken. Those samples were observed and recorded about Mill Creeks and Harrison Lakes temperatures and their dissolved oxygen levels. The water that is being tested goes into Lake Erie, so this data can eventually tie into the Lake Erie algae blooms. The recorded data had some differences every week, one week the water might have 11 ppm and then the next week it might be 5 ppm, this just depends on how much it rains and other things. The oxygen level in the creek was greater than the oxygen level in Harrison Lake, usually by 2 ppm, except for one day when they were the same.  This is probably due to the fact that the creek is moving much faster than the water in the lake. 
Protocols: Dissolved oxygen and water temperature
Language(s): English
Attachments:

Hi Booke, My name is John Farver and I am a Geology Professor at Bowling Green State University and I have done alot of research on water quality and Lake Erie. I enjoyed reading through your project and you did a good job describing how important dissolved oxygen levels are for aquatic life. A couple of things you might want to consider going forward would be how accurate do you think the kits you used are? How would duplicate or triplicate analysis of the same sample come out? You mentioned that you measured the water temperature each time you sampled but I don't see where you reported the values. Did temperature play a role in the DO values you obtained? Also, you noted the weather conditions on the days you sampled, did weather play a role? should weather play a role? It would also be useful to give readers a sense of how large, and flow conditions of Mill creek. I hope you will continue to build on this interesting and timely research.

 Hello, Brooke! My name is Larisa Schelkin, I am a GLOBE Partner, GLOBE GISN member and a proud GLOBE educator (https://www.globe.gov/web/larisa.schelkin/home). I am a retired petroleum engineer and an engineering R&D specialist. I now work with K-12 educators in a local non-profit Global STEM Education Center (www.globalstemcenter.org) in Massachusetts. I enjoyed reading your great report! I appreciate the MLA format making it much easier to read for a visually impaired person (like me). I like the structure of your report, the table of content is easy to follow. Great abstract! The purpose of your research project described clearly. I like your hypothesis and appreciate a lot of background information in the introduction.  I also like your reference to a Sea Grant Michigan “Dissolved oxygen and lake-stratification” by University of Michigan, it’s a great resource! Great description of the method; data table and a graph (you might want to add a water temperature). My suggestion is also to use/describe/follow the GLOBE protocols (and reference to any specific GLOBE protocol you have used). In case if you would like to find more information, you might want to check information on other natural factors and human factors influencing dissolved oxygen – for example, Utah State University has a lot of information on this research as well. I am touched by the acknowledgements and also would like to thank your scientific advisor (and your family). I would like to encourage you to continue your participation in GLOBE. You did a great job!

Hello Brooke. 
My name is Dr. Jodi Haney. I am a professor emeritus (which means retired, but still VERY active ;-) at Bowling Green State University in Ohio. My students at the university have collected hydrology data including dissolved oxygen in Lake Erie too. We also collect this data on campus ponds (all 7 of them)!  Your work is very interesting for sure.  How did you choose this topic?  Your methods are solid and your results make good sense. The finding that the creek has more D.O. consistently is important. Faster moving water is the likely cause... are there any other potential explanations? What does the higher D.O. values tell you about the creek vs. lake in terms of aquatic life? When you show your data in the table, it's always a good idea to have the AVERAGE data included. You can also plot an average line on your graph. Finally, you might want to think about the "sensitivity" of the kit you used... since the lake and creek differed by only a few ppm, can the kit detect small differences like that? We call that the precision of the kit. Just something to think about as you move forward. I hope you continue your study in the future and keep contributing data to GLOBE. We need YOU and the good work you do!