Filtration

LO1: Design and carry out an experiment

LO2: Explain separation via filtration

Experiment:

-Separate mud from water

-Use only equipment provided in ice cream container

-Record progress on Blog, include notes, changed, photos etc

-Change the design, learn from each trial

Materials:

• Paper towels
• 1 bottle
• 2 plastic cups
• 1 thread of string
• Cup of muddy water
• Cotton balls
• Cloth (Kind of a t-shirt texture)

Steps:

1. Get all your materials ready
2. Take the lid off the bottle
3. Cut the bottom part of your bottle
4. Take your paper towels and carefully put them inside the bottle
5. Take your cotton balls and also put them inside the bottle (Leave 1 cotton ball for later)
6. Take the leftover cotton ball and put it inside the nozzle
7. Take your piece of cloth and put it on top of the hole you made at the bottom of the bottle
8. Push your cloth inside deep enough so that the water wouldn't spill out
9. Get your string and tie it around the cloth and the bottle
10. Pour your cup of muddy water in carefully
11. Wait for the results

Pictures:

(We forgot to take a picture of us putting the cotton balls in)

Cutting the bottom part of the bottle

Putting in the paper towels

Tying cloth with a string

Finished project

Observation/Conclusion: 

Our design worked well because the water we purified is clear, and it doesn't have huge bits of dirt in it.

Everything went well, except the colour of the water after it has been purified. My team worked okay together and there wasn't any fights or anything. 

I think our water is clear because of how many stages it went through, it went through 4 stages. It first went through the cloth (Catches all the unwanted dirt), it then went through the cotton balls (Purifies the water), it also went through the paper towels (Also purifies the water) and it finally goes through the last stage, the cotton ball.

The paper towels, cloth, cotton balls and string (helped tie the cloth onto the bottle) were very helpful. They all helped re-filter and make our design.

My team modified our design by taking out the cotton balls. This made the water drip quicker. This is because the paper towel has turned from dry to wet.

Whenever we re-filter our water, we change the paper towels. We do this so that the excess water that the paper towel has absorbed wouldn't get mixed with the water we are about to re-filter.

Aim:

Even though it is clear, the water still has a yellow colour to it, it does not look like drinking water. I looked closely at our purified water and noticed that there are still tiny bits of dirt in it. So my group's aim is to make our water clearer and cleaner. 

This may lead us to change our design and try out something else.

Link to an example:
Mrs Boothby's Science Blog