Geography Field-trip to East Coast

(pH paper experiment)

(Filtration. Boiling and Litmus Paper experiment) Point A is on the top left, B bottom left, C top right and D bottom right.

(Boiling of seawater- Point D)

(Boiling of seawater - Point C)

(Boiling of seawater- Point B)

(Boiling of seawater- Point A)

Point C

Point C

(The first part- hypothesis, is in Gracia's blog)

Findings:
(By Nicole Mui)

When my group- Gracia, Kimberley, Jia Yu and I- were in East Coast, we decided to collect seawater from 4 different points of the beach. At each point, different activities were taking place, though at all points, many ships could be seen.

(Point A & B were in between 2 breakwalls)

Point A- people were playing in the water, tents, quite a number of people

Point B- no activities were taking place, many birds

(Point C & D had a jetty dividing them, with Point C being left-side and Point D being the right) - shown in the pictures above -

Point C- people were fishing, even though there was much sediments (rubbish) on the seashore too. There were also stronger waves as I got wetter than the other points while trying to collect the seawater.

Point D- no activities were taking place, no rubbish, smaller waves

What could be the reason that the sediments were only deposited on the leftside of the jetty? It is because the waves were moving from left to right, hence, the waves crashed into the jetty wall, lost most of its energy and travelled towards the seashore after being rebounded. As the waves were 'carrying' the sediments, this caused those sediments to be deposited onto the seashore. This only happened to the left-side because the waves that managed to travel to the right-side of the jetty were already weak and sediment-free. Therefore, only the left-side of the jetty was polluted on the seashore.

When we went back to school 2 days later, we did the following experiments on the seawater:
-Checking the clarity and smell of the saewater

-Filtration and boiling

-Boiling

-Litmus paper (blue & red)

-pH paper

Clarity & Smell

Point A: No smell, slightly cloudy

Point B: No smell,slightly cloudy

Point C: Strong fishy smell, slightly cloudy

Point D: Fishy smell, slightly cloudy

Ranking the seawater based on its clarity in descending order- D,C,A,B

Filtration & Boiling

When we filtered the seawater, we recorded in descending order which seawater left the most amount of residue- A,B,C,D was the order.

We also recorded how long the filtered seawater took to evaporate completely.

Point A- 11.55mins

Point B- 10.57mins

Point C- 13.09mins

Point D- 12.33mins

with the fastest being the seawater collected from Point B, then A, followed by D and C.

Boiling

This experiment was exactly the same as the one before except that we did not filtrate it.

The timings taken for the seawater to boil were-

Point A-15.11mins

Point B- 12.58mins

Point C- 18.05mins

Point D- 10.54mins

The seawater that evaporated the fastest was from Point D, then B, followed by A and C. This order is exactly the same as to which seawater left the most amount of residue (salt) for this experiment.

Litmus Paper

All the seawater were not acidic but slighly alkaline.

pH paper

All the seawater were of pH 9 (blue in colour).

Therefore I know that the seawater is not the same throughout.

Reflection:

Before the trip, I had a lot of questions about the seawater. However, after doing all these experiments, most of my questions have been answered, though I still have one that I'm still thinking about.

Why are the fishes found at Point C? Point C is supposedly the most polluted area out of all the 4 points. Futhermore, why did the man fish there, of all places? Then I thought. Perhaps it is due to the fact that more fishes thrive there as they feed on the 'rubbish'. It could have also been due to the waves being strong. The fishes might have been swept there by the waves, but this is just my hypothesis. I might go to East Coast again one day and try to investigate further.

*Sorry I couldn't insert the pictures in the middle of the post. It kept appearing at the top when i uploaded it.

~Nicole Mui~