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.

IntroductionStudents 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.

StakeholdersAPPL 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 IslandScout 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 & GoalsThe 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 AnalysisThe 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 QuestionUnlike 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.

SamplingBefore 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 PrepPreparation 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 InterpretationThe 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 ConclusionsPer 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 IslandThe 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

APPLAPPL, 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.

StudentsDuring 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 ProceduresAnalytical 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 DepartmentThe 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.

AcknowledgmentsThe 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