Water Filtration
Project Summary
This project was used less to teach us something than it was used as a capstone for learning that we had already done. We had already finished all of the lectures and worksheets for this unit by the time we started this project, so instead of using it as the means for education, we used it as the means to manifest our new knowledge on the subject. As always, this project was extremely open-ended, and we could do whatever we wanted, so long as it involved water in some way, so our group chose to make a water filter.
Key Concepts
Solute
The substance being dissolved into another substance to form a solution. For water filtration, this is the stuff we're trying to filter out.
Solvent
This is the substance that the solute dissolves into to form a solution. For us, the solvent we were working with was water.
solution
This is the mixture of a solute and solvent, in whatever form that may take. The best example from our project would be the water prior to filtration, despite it having multiple solutes.
Activated charcoal
Charcoal that has been treated to increase its absorptive properties, of which one use is pulling certain chemicals out of solution. We have activated charcoal as one step in our gravitational filter for this exact reason.
Physical potability
Most of our filtration system is based around making our water more potable by purely physical means, which is the basic kind of filter and obviously the easiest thing for us to construct. This can be seen steps 1, 2, and 4 in the gravitational filter and also a little bit in the water still in case not all of the physical things were caught.
chemical potability
The more difficult kind of filter is one where you can't directly see the results, and taking harmful chemicals out of our water is something that is very important but also very hard to gauge with the human eye. This kind of filtration can be seen in step 3 of our gravitational filter and in the water still. Activated charcoal has a negative charge, which attracts the often positively charged toxins we don't want to drink. For the water still, when the water is heated up and evaporates, things like bacteria can't float upwards with the steam, so they are also removed from the water through the chemical process of evaporation.
Reflection
I will split this project into two distinct periods for this reflection because I feel like during our work time, our group had distinctly different successes and failures during each period. At the start, our group did a pretty bad job with keeping everyone on the same page. When brainstorming, we were considering a lot of ideas, and then very unofficially decided on one idea to carry forward, and even then still changed the idea as individuals while we started working. If this sounds chaotic and disjointed, then you're hearing it right, because we had a pretty rocky start. However, the ideas that were thrown out were all well informed. While our logistics were far from fantastic, our collective knowledge on the subject and our willingness to put that knowledge into action were what propelled us forward into the main project work time. In the time period that we used for working on our main project, the positives and negatives were fairly intertwined. When we started working, we split up into two groups, one of which would do the physical construction and the other would do research for the slide presentation and overall understanding. This meant that our group was split up, and yet again, communications often failed. This time, the issue was that each smaller group had little concept of what the other group was doing, which led to a rushed catch-up on both sides. Aside from this flaw, the system worked well, as each group could hone in on one aspect of the project. For me personally, I worked entirely on research and it was my responsibility to the team to understand the ins and outs of water filtration. This meant that no one else had to worry about it and could instead focus entirely on their responsibilities. I believe this specialization served the project well as a whole, and, if nothing else, it certainly boosted my personal work speed and enhanced my overall working experience.