Acid Rain Activity Sheet

Purpose: In these activities, you will investigate the differences of pH found in a variety of water sources, and how those differences may effect an ecosystem.

Chalk Eating

Materials: beaker, chalk, 50 mL of vinegar

1. Place the chalk in the beaker, prepare 50 mL of vinegar.

What do you think will happen when you pour vinegar over the chalk?

2. Try it! Slowly pour the vinegar over the chalk. What happened?

3. Why do you think this is important?

Water pH

Materials: 1 qt. of Distilled water, 1 qt. of rain water, lemon juice, pH probe

Procedure:

1. Set up LabPro probe on the computer. Record the pH of distilled water.

2. Using the pH of distilled water, what do you think the pH of rain water will be?

Measure the pH of the rain water, Record the pH.

If there was a difference in rain water and distilled waters pH, why do you think they were different?

3. If we add ____ of lemon juice or vinegar to the rain water, what do you think will happen to the pH?

Add ____ of lemon juice or vinegar to the rain water. Record the pH.

Why do think there was a difference between rain water’s pH and rain water with lemon juice or vinegar added?

4. Why do you think pH of the rain water went down when we added lemon juice or vinegar? Draw a graph on the board showing the change in pH on the rain water.

How do you think a change in pH of rain water could effect the environment?

Acid Rain Activity Sheet

Purpose: In this activity, you will investigate the effect of acid rain on an ecosystem.

Acid Rain Ecosystem

Materials: Container, grass, begonia, dirt, rain water and acid rain water

Procedure:

1. Construct two ecosystems of dirt, begonia flower, grass into the container. Predict the pH level for the soil.

2. Record pH level of soil, was there a difference?

3. Over the next two weeks water both ecosystems on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. One ecosystem will receive rain water, while the other ecosystem will receive “acid rain” water (rain water with vinegar added).

What do you think will happen to the ecosystem that only gets rain water?

What do you think will happen to the ecosystem that gets “acid rain”?

At the end of the two weeks record the pH of the soil of both ecosystems.

What is the pH of the rain water ecosystem?

What is the pH of the “acid rain” ecosystem?

What effects could acid rain have on our environment?