So after some investigation ideas, we wanted to use blueprints and maps of various kinds to figure out where we get our clean water from in our houses! Here are the images, online maps, and research we did:
From our blueprints, we couldn't really tell much since they were only located to the lines of a specific property. However, they did confirm that there are pipes (lines) that contain clean water and lines that carry out water that leads to the sewer.
From there, we wanted to see if there were blueprints for the City of Chicago, and the underground pipe map didn't tell us much other than there were distribution piping. This is helping us understand that there are definitely pipes that distribute water all over the city, not from wells.
We still didn't know where we got our water from, so we turned to the ArcGIS maps, which we discovered something similar to a WWTF down by Navy Pier. When we zoomed in on it, the labels didn't tell us what it was, so we turned to Google Maps.
And Google Maps revealed it was a purification plant! This is a thing!
And someone in class suggested these red and white things that are far out in the lake might be somehow connected to the purification plant. So with some research, we figured out they were intake cribs, which means we get our water from Lake Michigan!
We realize from all this that there's something going on at the purification plant to make our water "purified" but we're not quite sure yet. So from here, we first want to see if the water in our tap and the water in the Lake are similar and different...and how this might help us figure out what exactly is going on at the purification plant!
Despite suggestions of getting water testing kits at Walgreen's, aquarium stores, Amazon, or Walgreen's, Home Depot came through! They carry fairly affordable water testing kits that we will test our water and the water in Lake Michigan--since we can't do a school field trip to test the lake water on such short notice, students suggested Mrs. Brinza go to the lake over the weekend, test the water, and video the evidence. Here's hoping the weather holds out to do these tests!
From there, we wanted to see if there were blueprints for the City of Chicago, and the underground pipe map didn't tell us much other than there were distribution piping. This is helping us understand that there are definitely pipes that distribute water all over the city, not from wells.
We still didn't know where we got our water from, so we turned to the ArcGIS maps, which we discovered something similar to a WWTF down by Navy Pier. When we zoomed in on it, the labels didn't tell us what it was, so we turned to Google Maps.
And Google Maps revealed it was a purification plant! This is a thing!
And someone in class suggested these red and white things that are far out in the lake might be somehow connected to the purification plant. So with some research, we figured out they were intake cribs, which means we get our water from Lake Michigan!
We realize from all this that there's something going on at the purification plant to make our water "purified" but we're not quite sure yet. So from here, we first want to see if the water in our tap and the water in the Lake are similar and different...and how this might help us figure out what exactly is going on at the purification plant!
Despite suggestions of getting water testing kits at Walgreen's, aquarium stores, Amazon, or Walgreen's, Home Depot came through! They carry fairly affordable water testing kits that we will test our water and the water in Lake Michigan--since we can't do a school field trip to test the lake water on such short notice, students suggested Mrs. Brinza go to the lake over the weekend, test the water, and video the evidence. Here's hoping the weather holds out to do these tests!
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