The Global Water Sampling Project

Spring 1999
Student Final Reports

All classes participating in this project have been asked to submit a final report to the project Discussion Area. In this report, students share what they have learned from doing the project. Read on to see the results of the students' hard work!

Final Report from Hamilton High School - Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA

The results are in and were we surprised!! Overall, our water here in Milwaukee is not as polluted as we thought it would be.
"But it always looks so dirty," is what we kept hearing. We learned that "dirtiness" doesn't always mean polluted waters.

We were especially surprised at the pH level. We thought it would be much lower showing acidity. milwaukee is an industrial
city with large factories situated fight near the Milwaukee River. We also thought that contaminants from Chicago would have
blown up to our area and fall as acid rain. The Biology class in the fall will conduct another test since weather patterns in the
summer tend to come from the southwest. We are thinking that the weather patterns from the northwest in the winter may have
helped stabilize the pH of the river.

We also think that results on water samples south of Milwaukee may be different. Since the river runs north to south, the water
may be more polluted downstream.

We enjoyed the project overall. It created much discussion, some hypotheses, and even more questions. That is what science is all about.

Thanks,

Milwaukee Hamilton 3rd block bio class

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