Web Sites for Water Quality
Department of Natural Resources
This site has wonderful information, but the sites that would probably be best for our water quality project are the Illinois Species Database, the EcoWatch Network, and the Critical Trends Assessment Program which is designed to monitor and restore ecosystems.This site would help students identify species and get more specific information on problems specific to Illinois. One of the ways that students monitor water quality is by the species that are found during the sampling of water. It is often hard to identify larval or immature forms of macroorganisms and this would help them find resources if they were having trouble.
National Wildlife Federation Water Quality
This site also has abundant information on such topics as The Clean Water Act, Water Quality Threats, the Great Lakes Projects, Water Quality Resources, and Special Reports on what is new or happening in the news. This is more of a resource for large bodies of water in the United States although they do have some regional information. Often when student see the large amount of trash dumped in the stream, they ask shouldn't that be against the law. This gives information on the history of the The Clean Water Act and how it has evolved over time.
This is a national watershed education program designed to involve students in local environmental service projects. The site is directed toward students and includes guides on how to study water issues and how to take action. This site is easy to read and uses little technical language which is good for the student who has difficulty in reading.
Part 2
Useful Software Packages
eProbe is a mobile, computer-based lab system consisting of probes, activites, and software to collect and visually analyze scientific data on water. It has built in word processing, a spreadsheet and graphing programs. Students can simultaneously collect, display, and graph data from two different probes. The callibrational feature allows students and teachers to calibrate a variety of data-gathering probes which is often time-consuming and difficult to do in the field.
Using the CBL in Chemistry is a software and a hardware package from Vernier. The package has a long list of probes that can be purchased such as pH sensor, dissolved oxygen, and the standard temperature probe plus the software needed to run and in some cases to simultaneously graph the results using Texas Instrument calculators that many schools have.