Download Archive - Ross School Senior Projects

Ross School - Senior Projects 2010
Student: Chris Harmon
Mentor: Patricia Lein
Product
Title: The Global Change in Ocean Chemistry
Description:
(Catalog Entry)
Details:
Final scientific poster and presentation attached.
Abstract
I had a lot of trouble deciding on a topic for my senior project. At first I wanted to
do something in business because I figured that I wanted to pursue a career in
business and it would help me if I could learn a little bit more about the different
aspects of business while I was still in high school. However, after thinking about
it for a few weeks, I decided that business was not something I wanted as the
subject of my senior project. Fortunately for me, in Advanced Marine Science
class we had a visitor one day: Alana Mitchell. She came in to talk to us about
her new book and to tell the class a little bit about the dangers that the world is
facing if we do not change the way we look at the Earth. After she left I talked to
Patty about adopting water chemistry as my senior project. I had always been
interested in the ocean and how it worked, and diving into the subject of water
chemistry made it possible for me to complete my senior project, but also learn a
lot more about a subject I was genuinely interested in. As soon as I sent my
senior project proposal to Ms. Parkes, I talked to Patty about what to do for my
product. We decided very quickly that it was best for me to create a scientific
poster because I needed space to have text, diagrams and graphs. But I wanted
the project to not only be about research, I wanted to do some work in the field.
For the first several months of my time working on my senior project, I drove to
several of the local bodies of water on Long Island. The purpose of these trips
were to collect water and bring them back to my house so they could be tested
for their levels of pH and dissolved oxygen. Another reason for this was because
I wanted to add a section to my poster that described how Long Island’s local
water’s were being affected. However, after collecting the data I made a big
mistake. It was not until late December that I realized my mistake: I forgot to
double-check the data to make sure it made sense. When I did double check the
data, I realized that it was wrong because I had calibrated the probes incorrectly.
However, this proved to be a small problem because I had received data from
Suffolk County Health Department that detailed the dissolved oxygen and
temperature levels of Peconic Bay and Shinnecock Bay dating back to the
1970’s. After I finished collecting the data, I went to work writing the different
subjects that would make up my paper: water chemistry, climate change, the
factors that change water chemistry, my local case study and the impact of
changing water chemistry. I went through several drafts of each of these subjects
until there were very few edits left. Then I added them all to a PowerPoint that
was 56 inches wide by 30 inches tall for my poster. When I added the papers to
the PowerPoint, I then wrote a mission state that detailed what I did, why I did it
and my objectives while doing it. When I completed that, I added the mission to
the top left corner of the PowerPoint. After that, I went searching for pictures that
would help illustrate some of the points I described in my essays. When I was
satisfied with the number of pictures I found, I added them as well to my poster.
Then, using the data I had received from Suffolk County Health Department, I
went to work putting the data into a graph. At first I was using a program called
Grapher, where I had to input the data into a table manually. However, I was later
saved from this process by Patty letting me know that since the data was on
excel, I could have excel create the graph for me. When excel had finished
create the graphs, I inserted them into the PowerPoint and dragged them into a
position that flowed well with the rest of the PowerPoint. When that was finished,
the only left to do was to put all the sources I used during the process of my
senior project and add them to a Works Consulted page. Microsoft word made
this process really easy because all I had to do was input the necessary
information into “Citations” tab in the word document and it would create the
“Works Consulted” for me. When my PowerPoint was completed, I emailed it to
East End Blueprint Company to have it printed.
Works Cited or Works Consulted
Works Consulted
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Community Member (Details)
Kim Shaw: Principal Environmental Analyst Office of Ecology Suffolk County
Department of Health Services
Nancy Panarese: Senior Public Health Sanitarian, Office of Ecology. Suffolk County
Depart of Health Services