Sara
The purpose of this experiment was to test the various sources of water available to the public. These include bottled water, tap water and distilled water; however, one would never drink distilled water, its use was only for the purpose of using water at its purest form. The experiment hoped to dispel some of the common myths surrounding water today and find just how safe each source of water was.
The most simplistic way to test water visually is to view it in another form, such as making tea with it. For if one was to simply look at plain water in a glass the results would be nonexistent. Tea was made with each source of water: Aqua Cool bottled water, tap water from a kitchen sink, water from a Needham High School water fountain and distilled water from the Science department. When the water was heated in order to make the tea, each sample was heated for the same amount of time and removed just before it had begun to boil as to not kill off any other substances in the samples. The same brand of tea bags were used, and each tea bag was left sitting in the each cup for the same amount of time (about five minutes). The results were distinctly clear; the tea from the high school was a black and muddy brown, the tap water was a slightly less darker brown, the distilled water was clean and tan (how one initially pictures tea) and the Aqua Cool was a lighter tan.
After this portion of the experiment was performed, water resources were researched in efforts to understand why these results had come about. The basic overview of this research, for a full explanation would take four more pages, was that the water from the tap sources showed darker colors for it had to come through pipes which could carry all sorts of contaminants such as lead. The bottled and distilled water had come straight from pure sources, bypassing the possibility of contamination. The tea test was performed again, this time with home-made contaminated water sources such as salt water, water with bleach, water with vinegar and water with baking soda. Each contaminant was chosen for there are often salt water deposits near resources, water is cleaned using chloride, and vinegar and baking soda are simple examples of acidic and basic contaminants, respectively. Once again, each source of water came out to a different hue of the tea tan.
This experiment was both conclusive and informative. In the end the tap water from ones house was found to be safe, as so far as the pipes were, the water from the high school was not recommend for consumption, the bottled water was safe as well, and one would never drink distilled water, so donít worry about it.