Abstract

In this lab we tested the contamination of water using oil, vinegar, and soap. Using plain tap water I added various amounts of contaminants to the water and noted the change.

Introduction

The introduction should describe the background of water quality and related issues using cited examples. You should include scholarly sources in this section to help explain why water quality research is important to society. When writing this section, make sure to cite all resources in APA format.

The introduction should also contain the objective for your study. This objective is the reason why the experiment is being done. Your final report should provide an objective that describes why we want to know the answer to the questions we are asking.

Finally, the introduction should end with your hypotheses. This section should include a hypothesis for each one of the three experiments. These hypotheses should be the same ones posed before you began your experiments. You may reword them following feedback from your instructor to illustrate a proper hypothesis, however, you should not adjust them to reflect the “right” answer. You do not lose points for an inaccurate hypothesis; scientists often revise their hypotheses based on scientific evidence following an experiment.

Materials and Methods
The materials and methods section should provide a brief description of the specialized materials used in your experiment and how they were used. This section needs to summarize the instructions with enough detail so that an outsider who does not have a copy of the lab instructions knows what you did. However, this does not mean writing every little step like “dip the pH test strip in the water, then shake the test strips,” these steps can be simplified to read “we used pH test strips to measure water pH”, etc. Additionally, this section should be