E-mail address: wells@cscl.alasu.edu
Work address:  Alabama State University
                           Alabama Science In Motion
                           Box 27
                           Montgomery, Alabama  36101
Work number:   334-229-4425

My position calls for me to work with 25 teachers.  I plan to teach these teachers to use the HACH Kits in performing water quality studies.  I will provide the HACH Kits for their use with their classes.  These teachers have a total of 125 Science classes with a total of  3500 students.  I plan to involve these teachers and their students in Alabama's Water Watch Program.  As part of the program, the teachers and their students will actually collect and submit, to Water Watch, the water quality data that they collect.

I also plan to give these same teachers at least three days of formal computer training.  During this training I invision teachers who are already computer literate to get further training, and those who are not to become at least computer literate.  This training will be done, so that teachers will have the expertise needed in submitting data to Water Watch.

This portion of our project will allow you to look at the project with the Stellar Modeling System.  This system has allowed us to put our project on a flow chart in order to help analyze the resulting data.  Our model is very simple; but it is very effective in showing how increases and decreases in Nitrate levels in one, two or all of our three study areas, Etra Lake, Rocky Brook and Peddie Lake; will affect the whole water system.

Our data showed that the Nitrate level of each lake was as follows: Etra Lake-.5ppm
Rocky Brook-2.5ppm, and Peddie Lake-2.5.

The graph is showing the results of our testing.  As you can see, our hypothesis is incorrect. We assumed that the agricultural area would produce the greatest amount of nitrate loading of the waters nearby.  The opposite was found.  We found the least amount of nitrate loading in the agricultural area and equal amounts in the suburban and recreational areas.  Other factors, other than the use of the land, must be considered.  At  Etra Lake, (agricultural), there was evidence of eutrophication. The large population of plants might have removed  some of the nitrates that could have resulted in higher indexes at this test site.  At Rocky Brook,(suburban), in addition to residential homes, there is a portion of a park bordering on one side.  The use  of the land at this recreational facility might have affected the data collected at this site.  At Peddie Lake, (recreational), a school and a house bordered the lake along a small portion.  Again, this small portion of land, used for recreation, could have affected the index readings for nitrates at this test site.
 

Special thanks to Denise Johnston of High Performance Systems, Hanover, NH, for her assistance in modeling the Stella Model used in this project.