Journal+Notes

//Sample taken from the middle of the island.//
 * Day 1**
 * We gathered water from a small, swamp-like pond in the middle of the island.
 * The walk to the pond was a mile and a half, and we noticed the sample of water was shaken up when we returned. It looked like a watery version of mud and dirt. One could easily tell that the water was contaminated.
 * The water smelled extremely repulsive; it had a garlic- and sulfur-hinted stench to it.
 * Particles that appeared to be clumps of dirt floated around in the solution.
 * It looked different after is sat for a half hour; the liquid seemed to separate itself into layers, in comparison to being completely mixed from being tossed around. Keeping the container still caused the water to lose its consolidation and split up into 'bands', like sedimentary rock.
 * The first photograph displays the water before it separated itself and //directly after// we arrived back at camp. The second photograph shows the water divided into the formed layers after a //half hour// of being at camp.

//Sample taken after 30 minutes of walking from the middle of the island.//



**Day 2**
 * We woke up this morning to find that the water we'd gathered yesterday in the container looked like this:




 * Everything, as seen in the picture, had separated even more thoroughly than they had the day before.
 * The mixture is heterogeneous--not //homogeneous//--meaning that it is composed of different substances that do not mix together.
 * We know that oil does not mix with other liquids, and because there is a distinct layer separation between the solutions in the jug, there is most likely oil from the airplane crash contaminating the water. We also know that if water is constantly moving, the oil cannot settle.
 * We figured that we still need to wait 12 more hours before dealing with the water, so in the meantime we gathered the items we salvaged from the crash site and started forming a hypothesis and planning an experiment to try and purify/separate the oil from the water.
 * **Question:** Is there a way to manually and successfully remove oil from water to make it suitable for consumption? **Hypothesis:** If we boil the liquid just long enough for the water to evaporate--but not the oil, because it takes longer--and collect the condensation through a tube that leads to another container, our water may be cleaner than it was before. Will it still contain traces of oil, and will it still be safe to drink?
 * These are the supplies that we've recovered from the plane crash:



**Day 3** //Setup of our first trial:// //The result of our first trial://
 * After a long night of thinking and reconsidering our original plan to try and 'boil' the water out of the solution, we soon came to a conclusion that it would not be a good idea. This is because oil is extremely flammable, and if we lit it, it would burst into flames and that would just cause more problems than necessary.
 * In the picture above, we have a sample of the water that we took from the pond 2 days ago. The oil is still separated from the water into two layers, as seen in the photo.
 * Because the water also contained oil, we decided to think of a plan to separate the oil from the water.
 * We thought of using a funnel to put inside the pitcher and then use the coffee machine filters to pour the contaminated water into the pitcher.
 * After we poured the contaminated water into the funnel, we also used gravel from the island to push down the water into the pitcher.
 * However, we found that the left over mixture inside the pitcher was still the oil and water but without the contaminates.
 * We successfully found a way to separate the dirt from the mixture but not the oil from the water.
 * Now the question still stands: How do we manually separate oil from water without using a flame?



**Day 4**
 * Put the pitcher underneath the glass funnel and coffee filter paper. The funnel had the filter paper folded inside with a mixed layer of gravel and sand.
 * After pouring the solution in, a yellow-gold liquid began dripping into the pitcher.
 * The liquid did contain oil! It was one layer of water, with a very thin layer of oil on top and it still smelled of garlic and sulfur.
 * We started with 90 mL, but ended with 70mL, which is more than half of the original amount.
 * We began to try a new trail when we looked back at our first sample to see if there was oil on top and we realized we had successfully gotten rid of all the oil.
 * We finally managed to filter out all of the dirt and oil, now we just have to purify the water and decide how we can get rid of the smell.

//Set up of our second trial://

//When the water was poured into the funnel://



//Leftover oil and contaminates in the funnel://



//The result of our second trial://



**Day 5**
 * Today, the main question asked was: //Is there a way to eliminate the odor & make// //the water clean?// We finally put our heads together, after looking over our meager amount of supplies, and created a hypothesis: //If the water is poured into a funnel of filter paper & charcoal, then the odor will be gone//. We decided that mixing charcoal and water would ultimately destroy the putrid scent and unappealing color to the liquid.
 * 5 mL of water was used for our first trial with the charcoal, because we did not want to waste too much of it for an experiment. When it was mixed with the charcoal and poured through the funnel, filter paper, & hose, the water streamed into the pitcher as a //clear water!//
 * The total time it took for us to purify the liquid was 4 minutes and 52 seconds.
 * When we finished pouring the last 70 mL in, the water came out clean & odorless.
 * Our final amount of water retrieved was 40 mL. We lost about 35 mL of oil and other substances (that helped make up the 75 mL in total) that hadn't been previously filtered by our other trials and experiments.
 * Will this method of purification last us until help comes, or we figure out a way to escape this deserted island? We can only hope...

//Our experiment setup (with the funnel, pitcher, soup bowl, filter paper, charcoal, and hose...and Sam//):



//The final product of clear water://





**Day 6** //Proof that salt was present in the water://
 * The main question for our sixth day on the island: Is it possible to completely purify the now-clear water?
 * Before beginning our next (and hopefully final) experiment with the water, it was discovered that the water from the pond is not freshwater as we'd thought--it was saltwater. After testing its salt level with the light bulb and battery, we realized that we'd need to take another step. Now it is crucial that we find a way to get rid of the salt in the water to make it drinkable.
 * Before conducting our next trial, we drew out in the sand (away from the water, of course) what our next setup would be. First, we would set the pitcher filled with the water over a fire. With the funnel over the top (heads down, tube up), the rubber hose would connect to it and collect the condensation gathering in the pitcher and funnel. The rubber hose would be slanted downward into the soup bowl, to gathered the cooled, purified water.



**Day 7**
 * We completed our fourth trial! After going through with our original plan to boil the water and collect the condensation with the hose that led to the soup bowl, we finally got it to work.
 * Our starting measurement was 40 mL, so when we return to the cooled soup bowl on Day 8 we are going to see how much water has been collected from the entire experiment. We hope that it will be enough to last us a little while and that the experiment can be repeated for future water collection.
 * This experiment became a visual of distillation.

//Set up of our fourth trial://