dirty+snow

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Title
Dirty Snow

Problem Scenario
does man made snow at ski mountains carry less

Broad Question
is snow unhealthy

Specific Question
Does man made snow carry less toxins then nature's snow

Hypothesis
I hypothesis that the man made snow carry's less toxins

Independent Variable:
choice of snow

Dependent Variable:
toxins

Variables That Need To Be Controlled:
mountain sample container woods/open area

General Plan
For my project I am comparing the amount of toxin in natural snow to man made snow.I am going to collect snow from a ski mountain and an untouched mountain and melt down the snow.Then I am going to take a paper filter and a funnel. I am going to dump the water into the filter with the funnel and after all the water went through I will then take the paper from the two melted snow samples and weigh the differences for the most bacteria I then take two more samples and have them measured in a lab. After this I will check my hypothesis and get my answer.

Potential Problems And Solutions
1.Dirt might drift into the snow 2.The filter and funnel might be dirty 3.If i touch the snow with my hannds it could contaminate it

Experimental Design
(add the correct headings from the experimental design page before beginning)

Number Of Comparison Categories:
2, natural and man-made snow

Number of Comparison Samples:
10, 5 natural and 5 man-made

Number Of Observation In Each Sample:
5 observations

When data will be collected
march,11, 2013

Where will data be collected?:
the data will be collected in my science class room, and at my house in my kitchen

Resources and Budget Table

 * Item || Number needed || Where I will get this || Cost ||
 * paper filter || 10 || school || ? ||
 * funnel || 1 || home || 0 ||
 * plastic pluming pipe || 2 || home depot || 20 ||
 * snow || 2 pounds || mountain || 0 ||
 * scale || 1 || school || 0 ||

Detailed Procedure
1. I am going to go to go to a ski mountain and a normal mountain 2.Then I am going to take a sample from each mountain by pushing a pluming pipe down and pulling snow out with it 3. I will then need to extract snow from the piping without touching it with my hands so i don't contaminate it 4. Then I will take the snow, melt it down, and run it through a funnel with a paper filter 5. I do this with both the snow samples with two different filters 6.Then I do that nine more times
 * Diagram**

Photo List
1. me at the mountain 2. me at the ski mountain 3. the two snow samples 4. picture of me sampling snow 5. me filtering melted snow 6.drying the snow 7. weighing the dried filter 8.making the graph 9. graphing data 10. finnish project

Time Line
procedure/photo list complete- 2/1 begin experiments no later then-2/4 experiments done- 3/1 analysis- 3/7 discussion/background- 3/15 posters complete- 3/22 K.M.S. fair-3/29

Data Table

 * variables || container || woods/open area || toxins ||  ||   ||

All Raw Data
I originally planned non doing ph(acididy) but the levels of ph were extrodinarilly low and I was forced to look for a differant element and setled on alkalinity.

Alkalinity level natural 1.high,250 2.high,250 3.high,250 4.high,250 5.low,100 man-made 1.very high,1000 2.very high,1000 3.very high,1000 4.very high,1000 5.very high,1000

ph levels man-made 1. 6.87 2.6.59 3.6.69 4.6.66 5.6.50 natural 1.6.76 2.6.95 3.6.69 4.6.82 5.6.63

Results
my results are that my hypothesis was wrong about man-made snow carrying less toxins. It maxed out in the alkalinity tests and the natural was really low.On the other hand the natural snow was higher in pH then the man made was.

Discussion
In my science my project i did not-is a slight pattern of the data, the man-made snow always had a higher alkalinity level then the natural snow. I got the answer I needed and was successful