Heather, UR- This is SCIENCE!!

I have decided to dedicate an entire blog spot to respond to a question that I was asked today about my latest post “It has been a long cigarette butt filled road…but we made it” the question that was asked was:

“I'm reading your post and seeing all these mistakes you made. Aren't you bothered by this? Aren't you concerned that your research grade would be lowered because of it? I don't get it”

I feel that this may be a question that is on everyone’s minds as they are on the outside of the glass computer screen viewing myself and my fellow undergraduate researchers in our efforts to… well… do science. 

So before I begin to try to answer this question I would like to ask you, what is science? According to the Google definition search science is 

sci·ence

ˈsīəns/

Noun: science

    The intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment.

To put it simply science is observing, studying and experimenting to learn how the world works. One of the reasons why I love science and experimenting is because it is not as cut and dry, yes or no answers like that of a math class. When a scientist runs an experiment they will get a result whether it was what they hypothesized would happen or nothing at all. No results is a result all in itself in science, a great quote that embodies this is “I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.” Thomas Edison in regards to inventing the light bulb and his many attempts.

So to answer your question about the “mistakes” I made and does it bother me… well I didn’t make any so no I am not bothered by this. What I did do is I figured out procedures for this experiment that I would change if I chose to recreate it. I also figured out that one cigarette butt per liter of water may be lethal to minnows but it is definitely not enough concentration to pick up any heavy metal traces with a SenSafe test strip (that I wouldn’t use again either if I have the choice). What I did observe is that the heated beakers may have shown a higher concentration of heavy metals so I will be recreating that experiment in the future… but this time I won’t leave the water to evaporate over four days… OK that may have been one mistake I made and I kicked myself as soon as I opened the black box…

Anyways

 What I am trying to get across is that there is no right or wrong way to experiment, even when your experiment doesn’t go as planned you still learned something. I was so relieved to finally see positive results with the test strips but throughout the experiment after all of the issues and yellow test strips all I could say was “well… this is science.” I am not worried about my grade being effected because even though my experiment didn’t go how I imagined, it was still a successful experiment. I have positive results that show cigarette butts do in fact leach heavy metals into water and in order to pick them up with a test strip that concentration has to be at one cigarette butt per 50ml distilled water. That little bit of knowledge will be my stepping stone for future experiments I will run testing whether salinity has an effect on the leaching process and (eventually) studying the effects sediments and aquatic plants have on the leaching process.

I hope this was helpful in clarifying any misconceptions about my experimental process, and if you still "don't get it" please feel free to ask additional questions in the comments below.