Ask an Expert

Coming soon! Ask your questions on EE Week's 2010 theme: Be Water and Energy Wise!  

In celebration of our 2009 theme: Be Water Wise!, National Environmental Education Week invited students to ask their questions about water, and our panel of experts recorded their answers on video. Click on a question below to watch the answer video.

Water Treatment

• What happens to water after it is flushed or rinsed down the drain? from Robin Koerber's 8th grade science class at St. Coleman's School
• What are the environmental impacts of using bleach in the water treatment process? from Mr. Treadway's 7th grade class at Flagstaff Middle School 
• It is usually taught that distilling water is an excellent way of removing impurities (such as removal of salt in the desalination process.) Given the volatility of many water pollutants, including some nitrogen oxides, does distillation always result in only water (H2O) or can some other substances be evaporated from heavily polluted water and wind up in the end product? Would distillation remove landfill leachate from water? from Deborah Wasylik's class at Dr. Phillips High School

Water Pollution

• Our local river has been frozen for months. Where there are lowhead dams, the open water reeks of hydrogen sulfide gas. What is the cause of this gas? from Joe Super's Biology class at Minot Public High School
• What are the main water pollutants that we worry about? What can be done to eliminate or reduce these pollutants? from Lee Hasselbring's Biology and Chemistry classes at Menwith Hill School 
• We have found that sodium hydroxide is used in an extremely wide range of products. Have there been studies done on the accumulation of sodium hydroxide in ground water? What about bioaccumulation of sodium hydroxide in animal tissue? from Ms. Hiss' 6th grade class at Seven Arrows Elementary School 

EE Week would like to thank these organizations for their participation on the expert panel:

• Chesapeake Bay Foundation
• Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission
• Water Environment Federation

EE Week also thanks our partners at SchoolTube for hosting these videos.