Try This!

Compare Your Water Results
Compare Your Community
Analyze National Data
Investigate Further

Compare Your Results to Past What's In Our Water? Schools.

Scientists look for numerical patterns or relationships in data by using tables, graphs, and charts to compare data. In addition, they can use maps to show spatial relationships in the data. Now that you know about your own water, how does it compare to others? Think about:

• How does the level of nitrate in our water compare to the nitrate in other places?
• Do certain types of communities have similar results?
• What impact does the water source have?

• View table
• Download text file (Data will appear in browser window, choose file, Save As to download to your harddrive)
• Download NGS Works file (Right-click with your mouse and select "Save Target As" or a similar option to save the file.)
• Download NGS Works file for Macintosh (Hold the control [Ctrl] key while clicking with your mouse and select "Save As" or similar option to save the file.)

Compare Your Community

Collect census data from www.census.gov/cgi-bin/gazetteer for statistics about a location and to help you use NGS Works to identify it on a map.

Look up a location in an atlas at www.nationalgeographic.com/mapmachine/facts_fs.html to find general information about its geography. Find out about tap water www.awwa.org/community/links.cfm?LinkCategoryID=20 at the location you are interested in.

Use a weather report to collect data from www.weatherunderground.com about today’s weather in different places. Use climate data from www.worldclimate.com to find out what the weather there is normally like.

Examine a map of water usage on wwwga.usgs.gov/edu/graphicshtml/totaluse3d.html. Look for similarities and differences between your part of the world and that of other students.

See the top 15 states that release the most nitrate into water and soil on www.epa.gov/safewater/dwh/t-ioc/nitrates.html. Is your state among them? Scroll to the bottom of that page to find out.

Analyze National Data

In your water data collection you used parts-per-million (ppm) as the measurement. All data sets may not use the same unit of measure, however you can convert your measurement to theirs and vice versa. Use the conversion calculator if you need it. www.ex.ac.uk/cimt/dictunit/ccconc.htm

Compare your data to National Groundwater Nitrate Contamination
Use your results to see if they are consistent with those tracked by the EPA. www.epa.gov/iwi/1999sept/iv21_usmap.html

Mid-Atlantic Region Nitrate Data
Compare your nitrate data to the data of New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, and North Carolina.
www.epa.gov/iwi/1999sept/iv21_usmap.html

Iowa Great Lakes Water Quality
Compare your nitrate data to the data of several Iowa lakes.
www.epa.gov/iwi/1999sept/iv21_usmap.html

Idaho Nitrate Ranking
Compare your nitrate data to Idaho Department of Environmental Quality.
www.epa.gov/iwi/1999sept/iv21_usmap.html

Glendale, California Water Quality
Compare your nitrate data to the city of Glendale, California.
www.epa.gov/iwi/1999sept/iv21_usmap.html

Investigate Further

Compare your data to national data sets beyond the examples above. The Internet provides a number of good sources for comparing your data further. Because these sites change frequently and new data is available constantly you will need to search the Internet for data about your state or other locations. Before beginning this activity, be sure to get your teacher's permission.

Using your browser search (or a search engine such as www.google.com), enter the following with your state name and without the quotations, "state name and groundwater and nitrates". A number of results will be found, review the sites to determine one that provides further data you want to use for comparisons. Not all sites will have the data in table format, review the text as well as tables, often the data points are written into the explanations.