Christopher Harmon - Senior Project

My Project

For my project I will be doing a water quality study focused on the saltwater and freshwater bodies of water on Long Island. I will conduct a series of water studies on various water systems, measuring the pH levels and the dissolved oxygen levels in areas that have high run off from fertilizer and bodies of water that have less run off in order to do a compare and contrast the ph levels and dissolved oxygen levels as well as the amount of life in order to see how healthy the bodies of water are. And then I will try to conduct a historical review to find out how much the pH levels, dissolved oxygen levels and how life systems in the water column have changed over time. 

    My final product is going to be a scientific poster of my results that will show the results of my field investigation, my hypothesis, research questions and assessment of the water quality.

Final Blog Week

This week I have been working on the taking the data that I received from the Suffolk County Health Department and putting them into graphs that I can use with my poster. I am also working on my essays for the poster about water, water chemistry, my local case studies and the future of ocean health.

Since I am going away during the holiday break, it makes working on my project a little bit easy in one way and harder in another. It's easier because I really don't have to do anything while i'm away so I have plenty of time to work on my project. On the other hand, i'm going to be at the beach so it might be somewhat hard to work. However, I'll get my product all finished a few days before I come back.

Week of 12/7

Today I met with Patty to discuss what I need to work on with my senior project. This is what I will be doing the next few weeks: Looking at historical data of growth in Peconic and SHinnecock bay areas,indexing the graphs starting at 0 and try and color code by years. Topics of the different essays I will be writing: 1st. Water chemistry in general. What it is? why is it important? Important factors when looking at ocean health. 2nd: factors that cause water chemistry changes and impact of changing water chemistry. 3rd: Local case study: interpretation of my data: historical and current. 4th: What does this suggest for future activities, why we need to pay attention to whats happening with our water chemistry.

I also found what program I will be using to display my graphs of the historical data: it's a program called Grapher. At the moment I just have to make a few edits to the graphs I already have(indexing the years and adding more data) and then add in the salinity for each of the areas. 

Week of 11/16/09

This week I worked with patty on a contract for my senior project. So, during thanksgiving I have to organize all my data and figure out how I am going to present it. Then i need to collect more water for data. Then i need to do more research with the websites that i have.

Week of 11/2

Over the past week and a half, i've been waiting to hear back from the Suffolk Health Department about the levels of Ph and Dissolved oxygen. I got an email back today. At some point over the next few days, i'm going to go over the data i received to see how much I can use. Over the weekend, i'm going to do some more research about the water levels.

Over the last few weeks, I haven't collected any more field data. I'm planning to wait a little more to see how much, if any, more data I need.

Week of 10/19

This week I planned to go to the water and collect more information about the water. I went to Shinecock Bay and Peconic Bay to collect water and do to ammonia tests. Both tests gave back with 0 ammonia which was surprising. I am planning to go back this weekend to both locations to retest the ammonia and then to other locations to gather more information.

I also heard back from the Suffolk Health Department about information on water. I'm going to email them back about the locations of water and the levels of dissolved oxygen, ph and ammonia.

Week of 10/12

This week I did not really do a lot of work on my senior project. However, this weekend I am planning to go out to the local waters and collect much more data and then bring the water back in containers to my house to see how the levels of Ph and Dissolved oxygen change over time. I am also probably going to get into contact with one of outside consultants to get some historical data.

Week of 10/5

This week on Monday I took dissolved oxygen and Ph levels of 7 containers of water from 4 different areas: Peconic Bay, Napeague Harbor, Accabonac Harbor and Lake Montauk. I organized them into two different categories: container with the top off and container with the top on. Every week i'll check the dissolved oxygen and Ph levels to see how they change as a somewhat side experiment. This Friday i'm meeting Patty to test her tank again with the bubbler in it.

This Thursday i'm meeting with Patty to work more on the project rubric. I'm hoping that sometime this week i'll hear back form Kim Shaw with some historical data so I can begin to plan out my final product.

Week of 9/28

This week we got our new laptops, which is great. But, I forgot to back up the application Logger Pro...so today i'm heading to the help desk to get it installed. I also met with Patty this week to discuss my rubric. Our plan is for both of us to make our own copies of the rubric and then come together and somewhat merge them. I will also be heading over to Patty's science lab today to do some dissolved oxygen tests on one of her tanks assuming I get logger pro back on my laptop.

I also have two possible outside consultants and will be getting in contact with both of them in the coming days. This weekend I am planning to get most of my testing out of the way near Montauk so I can begin to analyze it and collect historical data.

Week of 9/21

    This week I went down to Peconic Bay near my house to collect some water for some more testing. I put the water into containers and brought it back to my house. I did a few tests on them such as Ph and dissolved oxygen through the vernier logger pro system on my laptop. However, the next day when I tried to get the system running again my laptop wouldn't connect with the equipment. 

    Next week my plan is to try and go to some of the bay and bodies of water that were recommended to me by Larry Penny through Anita Wright. Also, i'd like to try and get some of the historical data and records of the waters on Long Island so I can begin to compare and contrast the results. Also, I will try and contact Kim Shaw who's involved with Peconic Estuary and try and get some information from him.

Test