England-2011-lab2

Lab 2: Holy Pigeon P\$&! Batman, it's Penelope Poison!

Overview

London is in a pickle, and it is your job to help them out of it. The notorious Penelope Poison has threatened to release a toxic substance into London's water supply, in order to thwart her plan the emergency response people need visualizations which show the water temperature, air temperature, wind speed and direction, and pH of/at a number of water bodies located in central London.

You will all need to show-up at location 1 (see Questions below) before/at 11:00 on Sunday morning. I will be available starting at 9:30 at that location to hand-out instruments, answer questions, etc. At least one person from each group should plan on being there before 11:00. I will be leaving that location at 11:15 sharp so stragglers will need to hope their group waits for them.

Lab Groups

Listed below are your scientifically chosen lab groups:

• Red: Lily, Bill, Emily, Ben
• Yellow: Mamus, Ivan, Vivian, Eva
• Green: Krystnell, Johanna, Spencer, McKayla, Gillian

Details

Just before the Director of Emergency Response (Mr B. Cheese) left town for an undisclosed location he took pictures of the locations that need to be sampled, you can find them here. Unfortunately he was in a rush and neglected to label any of the pictures.

• Identify where each of the 11 images were taken.
• At each of those 11 locations record the following:
  1. A picture that duplicates as near as possible the one you were given of the location.
  2. The latitude, longitude and elevation of the location (if you have a GPS in your kit use that, if not use Google Earth).
  3. An estimate of the wind direction and speed when you are there.
  4. The water temperature or the pH of the water (depending on which instrument kit you have).
  5. The air temperature.

Remember to record at least three readings for each parameter at each location. Later you can aggregate each of those groups of three readings into a measurement of that parameter for that location. Think about how to "reset" each instrument so you can record three independent readings of each parameter.

To measure the wind speed you can estimate it using the Beaufort scale. The wind direction can be determined with a small scrap of paper and a compass or GPS.

Measuring the air temperature will depend on which kit you have. The thermocouple and the combination compass/thermometer can take direct readings, the infrared thermometer will require a little cleverness to enable it to measure the air temperature (hint, you might want to bring a small piece of aluminum foil and a glove with you).

Each group must make their own measurements, this will enable the emergency responders to compare the values obtained with different instruments and people to ensure that they react properly. You can share techniques and ideas among your groups but not data.

Normally you would take air and water samples at each location as well, since Penelope Poison is threatening to act soon you don't have time for that now.

Red Instrument Kit

• GPS
• Infrared thermometer (plus aluminum foil and a glove)

Yellow Instrument Kit

• GPS
• Thermocouple thermometer

Green Instrument Kit

• Combination compass/thermometer
• pH meter

Report

Your lab report should include the following elements:

1. A description of the problem you were given and your approach to solving it.
2. For each parameter the procedure you followed to obtain the readings and measurement.
3. A tabular display of each measurement of each parameter at each location.
4. A small/simple gallery of the images you took at each of the locations with descriptions of the actual place (e.g. Looking North from the South side of the fountain in Bethesda Terrace in Central Park).
5. An appendix with the readings and measurements for each parameter and each location.
6. For each of the instruments you used estimate the error associated with it.
7. A short statement from each group member explaining what they contributed to this lab.

Visualization

Each group will be able to create a visualization with the parameters they measured.

Questions

Before you start and once you are working on the lab I will be available to answer questions, etc., here's where to find me when:

1. Between 09:30 and 11:00 you can find me at roughly 51.510509, -0.127060
2. Between 11:30 and 14:30 you can find me at roughly 51.502998, -0.165623
3. After 15:00 you can find me at roughly 51.511393, -0.127091

I won't be checking email or text messages between 11:00 and 15:00 but I will be available for F2F consultation at the locations/times listed above.