Recent efforts in environmental restoration of natural waters and recent tragedies related to clean drinking water across the world have put an emphasis on improved and widespread water analysis. For the past eight years, undergraduate chemistry majors at Emmanuel College (Boston) have engaged in sampling and analysis of Muddy River water for water hardness and heavy metal content, typically Pb2+, Fe2+, Cu2+, and Zn2+. In the past two years, the class has added the analysis of tap water collected by students at locations of their choice across the city of Boston. These lab experiments afford the opportunity to discuss environmental and toxicology issues affecting communities across the world and provides real-world and important applications that help solidify analytical chemistry concepts such as standard addition, titrations, and atomic spectroscopy. Each year students volunteer to present their class data and our historical data to a local organization, the Colleges of the Fenway Muddy River Symposium and the Emerald Necklace Conservancy. This approach in analytical chemistry courses or other courses could be used in colleges across the country to monitor water quality for the local community.

Analytical chemistry students monitoring of Boston’s Muddy River and drinking water

256th National Meeting (2018)

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.