The Effect of a Filter Made Using Quercus laurifolia on the Bacterial Colony Count in Lake Water
School Name
Spring Valley High School
Grade Level
10th Grade
Presentation Topic
Environmental Science
Presentation Type
Non-Mentored
Abstract
The quality of human health and survival is largely based on accessibility to safe drinking water and basic water sanitation. Many populations, globally however, do not have access to clean water. Particularly, populations in undeveloped nations often experience significant challenges in obtaining potable water. In other cases people may be forced to go without clean water, including being stranded in the woods or forest. A solution to this was considered by testing the effect of a filter made of epoxy putty, PVC tubing, and a Quercus laurifolia branch, a type of tree more commonly known as laurel oak. The process included running 1.5 milliliters of water through the Quercus laurifolia filter 30 times and preparing five Petri dishes by plating, incubating, and counting the resulting bacterial colonies. As a control, unfiltered water was plated on four Petri dishes, incubated, and counted. The average number of colonies for filtered water samples was 1369, while the unfiltered water samples resulted in 64.5 colonies. It was hypothesized that there would be less bacterial colonies in the filtered water, compared to the unfiltered water. In a two sample t-test (t(4)=3.87, p=0.9910), there was insufficient evidence to support a statistical difference between the number of bacterial colonies that grew in filtered vs. unfiltered lake water, therefore not supporting the hypothesis. Instead, fewer bacterial colonies were found in the unfiltered water than the filtered water.
Recommended Citation
Watson, Tylar D., "The Effect of a Filter Made Using Quercus laurifolia on the Bacterial Colony Count in Lake Water" (2015). South Carolina Junior Academy of Science. 198.
https://scholarexchange.furman.edu/scjas/2015/all/198
Start Date
4-11-2015 11:45 AM
End Date
4-11-2015 12:00 PM
The Effect of a Filter Made Using Quercus laurifolia on the Bacterial Colony Count in Lake Water
The quality of human health and survival is largely based on accessibility to safe drinking water and basic water sanitation. Many populations, globally however, do not have access to clean water. Particularly, populations in undeveloped nations often experience significant challenges in obtaining potable water. In other cases people may be forced to go without clean water, including being stranded in the woods or forest. A solution to this was considered by testing the effect of a filter made of epoxy putty, PVC tubing, and a Quercus laurifolia branch, a type of tree more commonly known as laurel oak. The process included running 1.5 milliliters of water through the Quercus laurifolia filter 30 times and preparing five Petri dishes by plating, incubating, and counting the resulting bacterial colonies. As a control, unfiltered water was plated on four Petri dishes, incubated, and counted. The average number of colonies for filtered water samples was 1369, while the unfiltered water samples resulted in 64.5 colonies. It was hypothesized that there would be less bacterial colonies in the filtered water, compared to the unfiltered water. In a two sample t-test (t(4)=3.87, p=0.9910), there was insufficient evidence to support a statistical difference between the number of bacterial colonies that grew in filtered vs. unfiltered lake water, therefore not supporting the hypothesis. Instead, fewer bacterial colonies were found in the unfiltered water than the filtered water.
