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7th Grade Life Science
Overview
The science fair teams will be presenting their findings from data collected at the Chicago River. The goal was to determine the water quality of the Chicago River using either macroinvertebrates or fecal coliform as indicators. Both organisms are considered bioindicators of water quality, in other words, their presence is a clue towards the pollution level in the river.
In preparation for collecting data, students learned about food webs and ecosystem balance. This project helps them to see the influence humans have on ecosystem balance. After the learned about these concepts, they went to the river and took water samples to test fecal coliform, and used nets to catch macroinvertebrates. Next, they analyzed their evidence and applied their scientific thinking to make conclusions. This project is the culmination of many topics covered earlier in the year, specifically, bacteria, making hypotheses, writing procedures, identifying variables in an experiment, creating data charts and graphs, and writing a conclusion based on the data.
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