1. Water Quality Testing for Scout Island Outdoor Education Center:
Academic and Industrial Collaboration as Part of Chem 106
Nick Vizenor, Jordan Ringel, Eric Herzog, Catalina Olea, Pamela Cruz, Edwin Lozano, Enang Thao, Alicia Alfter, Jeffery Cole, Kathy
Marshall, Kenuyo Ishida-Enns, Pa Houa Xiong, Ryan Dougherty, Salvador Vazquez, Veronica Nuño, and Eric Person
Department of Chemistry, California State University, Fresno CA.
Introduction
Students in the Fall 2012 Chem 106 class tested the water quality
of Scout Island Outdoor Education Center at APPL Inc. in Clovis,
CA. Chem 106 is an upper division instrumental analysis course
taken by senior B.S. Chemistry majors and first year M.S.
students. The course covers theory and applications of advanced
instrumentation used in chemical analysis. The course is taught
with both a lecture and laboratory portion covering spectroscopic,
chromatographic and electrochemical methods.
Stakeholders
APPL Inc.
Agriculture & Priority Pollutants
Laboratories, Inc. in an environmental
analysis lab which provided a
classroom setting and state-of-the-art
instrumentation for Chem 106
students to run water analysis.
Scout Island
Scout Island is an outdoor education
center owned by the Fresno County
Office of Education. They provide an
area for students to go explore nature
and study biological systems. They
have a private well which supplies
drinking water to the facility. This in
essence makes them a water district
which must regularly test the water
quality.
Concept & Goals
The collaboration of Chem 106, APPL Inc., and Scout Island was
built to give students the opportunity to solve real world problems
while learning about the many modern methods of analytical
analysis. Students learn to understand the issues associated with
industrial chemistry including accreditation, quality control, and
varying business models. The class also included a service
learning aspect as a gift to Scout Island Outdoor Education Center.
General Steps in Analytical Analysis
The analytical process is used in science constantly without much
thought. It is how students, faculty, and scientists go about solving
chemical problems in the world and in the classroom. Presented
here is an outline of the steps in the analytical process and how
each step was used in the water quality testing.
Formulating the Question
Unlike your typical chemistry lab, the questions that were
addressed by the class were much more open ended. What
constitutes clean drinking water, and is Scout Island’s safe? This
is a global question rather than a focused question encountered
in a laboratory course. This class offered an opportunity to
tackle “real world” questions using industry methods.
Sampling
Before each lab rotation, the
students were required to
collect their own samples from
Scout Island. As Scout Island
is a large property with many
drinking fountains, it would be
impractical to sample every
location. Students then had to
develop a sampling plan that
provide an answer to the
question posed initially. To
gage the quality of drinking
water on Scout Island, select
fountains were sampled from to
Sample Prep
Preparation of the samples is an important task in instrumental
analysis. Many factors play into having a successful analysis.
Often, sample preparation is the most important because if a
sample is not prepared or extracted sufficiently, either the actual
results or the validity will suffer. In order to ensure a valid result,
many of the SOPs require preparation of the water by various
means. Students had to follow APPLs SOP for sample
preparation for each rotation, some of which required organic
extraction or multi-day acid digestion.
Analysis (QA/QC)
Each sequence run on an instrument consists of more than just
the series of samples to be tested. Quality control samples are
included with each batch of samples as a check to ensure that
there are not any other plausible explanations as to the results
reported. These checks vary in scope from measuring
instrument drift to matrix interference with the instrument. APPL
must ensure that all of the data that they provide their clients is
reliable, accurate, and can be held up in a court of law. This is
achieved by maintaining rigorous quality control/quality
assurance protocol. The notion of ensuring that a reported
concentration is indeed correct and valid is missing from the
academic setting especially in undergraduate laboratory
courses. However, when a company must stake its reputation on
its reports, they take every step to ensure nothing has gone
wrong. In every analysis that was conducted, the majority of the
time spent in the lab was dedicated to QA/QC, such as creating
a calibration curve, preparing matrix spike samples, and running
the various blanks through the instrument. The students in
Chem 106 were required to uphold all of these QA/QC
standards during the analysis and ensure that they met
acceptance criteria.
Reporting and Interpretation
The results and data packet generated by the students differ
greatly from typical ACS style reports. Reports are results
focussed, as they present the information necessary to answer
the question posed by the client. Reports are “matter of fact”
and do not read like formal ACS publications. Student reports
were simply data packets of instrumental read outs and
summary data tables along with quality control checks. Reports
did not include procedural steps or introductions as these are
identical for each analysis preformed under a given EPA
method. Students were also required to perform a peer review
of each data packet and report before submission to APPL and
to Scout Island. The peer review process is common in the
analytical testing industry and ensures quality of reporting by
checking against oversight.
Drawing Conclusions
Per the steps of the analytical method, the final conclusions
are drawn by the client. APPL does not issue conclusions of
quality or safety of the samples they test. They provide their
clients with detailed chemical data so that the client can
determine what step should be taken next in regards to saftety
of their drinking water. Students, however, were expected to
analyze the resulting data and compare it to EPA water quality
standards and Fresno averages. A final report was compiled
by the students and included a summary of analysis that was
given to Scout Island but not necessary per the analytical
testing process.
Scout Island
The Scout Island Outdoor Education Center received a full
analytical report of the quality of their drinking water stating that
each contaminant tested for fell below the EPA’s maximum
contaminant levels for drinking water and most below the
quantitation limit for the analysis. The full report is available for
public viewing on the on the following website:
www.fresnostate.edu/csm/chemistry/documents/2012ScoutIslandWQ.pdf
APPL
APPL, Inc. met their aim of giving back to both the community and
Fresno State, as many of the employees are alumni. They sought
to help improve the quality of the graduates from the chemistry
department by expanding the students’ knowledge of modern
instrumental analysis. They were also able to use the class as a
pre-screening for possible employees because the students
gained experience with the techniques and instruments throughout
the semester. APPL, Inc. viewed the collaboration as an
opportunity to propagate student interest in science for the future
of the San Joaquin Valley’s economy.
Students
During the course, students gained practical experience using
EPA certified methods for analytical analysis. This experience
increases their value in the job market as well as with potential
graduate programs. Furthermore, the students were able to help
give back to the Fresno community by using their passion for
chemistry.
Selecting Procedures
Analytical techniques were selected (1) to reinforce course
learning outcomes and (2) to address important classes of
contaminants in drinking water. For each technique, students
needed to follow and comply with laboratory Standard
Operating Procedures (SOPs) developed to follow
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) guidelines and meet
environmental laboratory accreditation requirements. Each
method used was sufficiently sensitive to detect and quantify
contaminants below levels where they pose a health risk.
Fresno State Chemistry Department
The department offers a B.S. and B.A.
degree in chemistry as well as an
M.S. Senior B.S. students and some
M.S. students take Chem 106 during
the fall semester as a degree
requirement.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank the Fresno State Chemistry Department,
APPL Labs, and Scout Island for working in collaboration to make this
experience possible. The authors also thank Diane Anderson, president of
APPL, Inc. for her efforts in making this class happen, Sharon Dehmlow for
organizing each lab section, each lab supervisor and APPL employee for
their time, help, and instruction, and Steve Bock for allowing the class to
take samples and provide a detailed water quality report of Scout Island.
Students used these
gas chromatographs
during the analysis of
organochlorine
pesticides in water.
This shows a fraction
of the equipment
available to use.
Outcomes
give a spatial overview of the property. Another aspect of the
sampling process is to ensure the sample has not been
tampered with during the course of analysis. Students followed
the chain of custody (CoC) procedures that are used in
analytical labs. A CoC acts as a paper trail for all samples
between the sampling time and when the final report is
generated. A paper trail presents a clear history of who handled
each sample and cuts down the possibility of tampering.
Students were required to fill out a CoC form during sampling,
use evidence tape on all bottles, and check in/out every sample
during analysis.
Chemistry
Chemistry