Service Learning: Water Quality Testing

Biology 213 Service Learning: Water Quality Testing

 I volunteered at Big Gulch in Mukilteo for a total of four hours. The event organizer was Kacie McCarty, her email is kacie.mccarty@email.edcc.edu and I volunteered on April 23^rd. The event was sponsored by Edmonds Community College and the goal was to check the overall health of the stream for salmon runs. We checked bacteria levels (E. coli), tested water turbidity (the cloudiness of the water), the pH of the stream, Alkalinity test, and dissolved oxygen test. I oversaw the turbidity test making sure we followed the procedure, filled a syringe with sodium thiosulfate for the dissolved oxygen test and went down to the stream several times to collect water samples. We found the turbidity to be high for Big Gulch.  In our testing, we found the Jackson Turbidity Units (JTU) to be 5, when Big Gulch is normally 2 JTU.

Figure 1: The dissolved oxygen in progress, precipitate sunk to the bottom.

Figure 2: The result of the hardiness test, solution started as a pink color, we added solute to it

Figure 3: Syringe of sodium thiosulfate being titrated into a solution containing the "fixed" water and a starch indicator.

  

This experienced has given me more perceptive on the importance of ecological studies and the health of our environment.  Last quarter I did wildlife monitoring and got a better understanding of what impacts the health of a forest.  This trip I learned more about what makes a stream healthy. This quarter we looked at soil composition, bacteria, and protists. In this activity, we talked about how rain water can cause more soil to run into the streams, increasing turbidity.  We also discussed the impact of algae on the stream, and how E. coli can get in the stream either through the duck population or overflowing manholes. While what we were doing was ecology we used chemistry techniques in titrations, setting up a test for dissolved oxygen adding exact amounts of solute to the solvent, and adding concentrated sulfuric acid to form a precipitate. We also practiced microbiology techniques in preparing petri dishes.  Keeping streams healthy help keep salmon runs at adequate levels, which brings a flow of nutrients with it from marine environments to fresh water environments.  These streams are an important gateway for the salmon to and from the ocean where they spend most of their lives to the freshwaters where they are born and spend their final days. In this course, we talked about behavioral ecology and the salmon producing their young in the safer freshwater rather than the hostile, in comparison, ocean is a prime example of ecological pressures on animal behavior. 

The health of our environment directly reflects our health as a society.  Our human impacted has profound effects on the environment around us both for good and bad; therefore, to maintain its health is our responsibly, even if some of us do not understand the impacts we have on the environment.  It is in all our best interests to make the earth as clean as possible and ensure the resources we pull from the environment are taken sustainably to keep the earth’s ecosystems balanced into the far future to secure the future of not only future generations of our species, but life as a whole.

Provide at least 4 questions that were raised based on your service learning activity.
Does the pH of the stream vary much with the seasons like turbidity?
Does E. coli heavily impact the salmon run?
Do local industries still impact streams with environmental protections?
While the research is carried out by the college, is it sponsored by a larger agency?