Week 1 - Water Sampling, Set Up

Hello and welcome to my process blog for my summer research project! This project will be looking at the intersections of water quality, superfund sites, socioeconomic factors, and forest cover/greenspace in 4 towns in Middlesex County, MA. Part of my goal with this project is to make scientific research more accessible to the general public (known as citizen science or community science), and a component of that will be weekly blogs detailing my project activities!

This week, I set up my project and began water sampling.

When doing any sort of experiment or sampling, it is always good to make sure you have all the materials you need, as well as a way to record your data. I purchased water quality test kits and pH strips at a local hardware store, as well as on Amazon, and created a data collection sheet in Google Docs (linked here ). Before going out to collect data, it is also good to check what exactly you will need. The tests I used required 40z of water, so I premarked a container for that amount, and also made sure I had writing utensils to keep track of my data.

At the sites themselves, I collected a 4oz sample, and then went through the tests in the kit, as well as an independent pH test. These tests were dip strips, so no outside lab equipment was required. A note on scientific process though - after completing these tests, I realized that the ones I got from the hardware store were testing for slightly different things than the ones I got from Amazon - so I will be retesting the sites that used the former tests for consistency!

At this point, I have only completed 1/2 of the 8 tests I'm doing this week - so no data analysis yet. However, the main takeaway of this week is to be prepared and pay attention to details. If you do that, your process will be much easier!