Every project has an Hypothesis. A hypothesis is a guess, or estimation on what the outcome of your project will be. After researching on our project we have to make a hypothesis. Our hypothesis is if we test 2 different pools for, pH, bacteria alkalinity, total chlorine, total bromine, calcium hardness free available chlorine and cyanuric acids that Bob Bahan Aquatics and Fitness center will be the “cleanest” of the two. The reason why we think this is because of the fact that Village Square Leisure Center is a bigger pool and more people attend to it. This can mean that more bacteria can transfer from one another.

There was quite a bit of research, so we picked the most relevent research topics on our experiments.

Cryptosporidium also known as “Crypto” are parasites which are organisms that come from the feces of infected animals and people. Crypto is very dangerous and highly contagious. It produces a disease called cryptosporidiosis. This disease can cause itchiness, dehydration, vomiting, nausea, fever, stomach cramps or pain, weight loss and more. It has an outer shell to protect itself and live longer outside the body. Crypto can spread in several ways, mainly through drinking water and recreational water (like pools). Cryptosporidium is leading to waterborne diseases in the United States but it can also spread easily in pool water. Cryptosporidium is an extremely chlorine-tolerant parasite. Which means it doesn’t die in chlorine and can spread rapidly and dangerously in a swimming pool. It can spread even when the chlorine concentration is well-maintained in the water. This means cryptosporidium it more prone to be found in pools, so when we go to test the water we are going to make sure to look out for this type of bacteria. It’s been known to go away on its own without any treatment.

Norovirus is an excessively contagious disease that can cause diarrhea and vomiting. It is also referred to as “winter vomiting disease” or the “stomach bug”. You can get norovirus by: eating food or drinking liquids contaminated by an infected person, eating raw shellfish that has been harvested from contaminated waters or touching contaminated surfaces and then touching your mouth or eating something without washing your hands. Some symptoms of norovirus are: vomiting, watery diarrhea and stomach cramping. You may also get a fever or headaches. In the US sometimes certain seafoods like shellfish and oysters are naturally contaminated with norovirus. Pools usually develop norovirus commonly which is dangerous because norovirus can cause severe illnesses. There is no treatment for norovirus, so you have to let it run its course. 

One of the bacterias that are harmful to humans are called cyanobacteria (sometimes called green-blue algae) and they are able to produce toxins called cyanotoxins which are harmful to humans. Cyanobacteria is aquatic, this means that an object's habitat is underwater such as fish, seaweed and coral. Since cyanobacteria is an aquatic bacteria this means that there is a chance that it could be in the pool water that we are testing. They are barely visible to the naked eye but when in clusters cyanobacteria can be seen. Cyanobacteria is one of the most important bacterias but can also be a harmful one. It causes nausea and stomach pain but it is also vital because it is responsible for the oxygenation of the atmosphere and body’s of water. Unlike most viruses, cyanobacteria has multiple ways to get rid of it. You could do it manually, increase the flow and/or filtration rate, adjust the photoperiod because cyanobacteria is like plants and it uses photosynthesis to turn light into energy and lastly you could use chemical treatment to get rid of it. 

Shigella is a family of bacteria that causes intestinal infection. Some signs that you have shigella are diarrhea (often bloody), abdominal pain, fever and  stomach cramps. Shigella is very contagious but you shouldn’t just stay away from people with the symptoms. People can have and spread shigella even if they don’t have any of the symptoms. Symptoms usually start 1-3 days after being exposed to shigella. Like cryptosporidium, shigella is formed from the feces of infected people, but it can also come from the foods and water of infected people. Shigella can last 5-7 days but some symptoms can last a few days to 4 or more weeks. If shigella gets serious it can cause a disease called shigellosis which occasionally causes seizures, bloodstream infection or arthritis. And it can rarely result in death. Like I said before, Shigella runs its course for about 5-7 days. After that you could start replacing fluids that were lost because of diarrhea.

E. coli stands for Escherichia coli. It is a type of bacteria that is usually found in the lower intestine of warm-blooded organisms. You usually get E. coli infections by: eating contaminated foods, drinking unpasteurized beverages, drinking contaminated water or getting it in your mouth, touching stool or contaminated surfaces, not wiping properly after going to the bathroom. E. coli is considered to be highly contagious. Though most E. Coli are harmless some can cause severe symptoms like: diarrhea (often bloody), severe stomach cramps and vomiting. E. coli is usually found in raw or undercooked ground meat products, raw milk or cheese products, and contaminated vegetables or sprouts. E. coli usually goes away on its own and you don’t need any antibiotics.

Giardia is a parasite like cryptosporidium and it’s formed from soil, food or water that has been contaminated by the feces of people or animals who've already been infected by giardia. Giardia causes a diarrheal disease called giardiasis. According to our research, most people attain giardiasis from accidentally swallowing water that may not have known has been contaminated, mainly drinking water and recreational water (pools, lakes, rivers). Giardia isn’t as chlorine-tolerant as cryptosporidium but it has a hard outer shell that protects its body. Because of this it can last up to 45 minutes even in well-chlorinated water. It takes less than a few minutes for giardia to spread in a crowded pool and infect many people. Giardia can give you diarrhea for more than 2 weeks.

A pH level is a measure of how acidic or basic a substance is. Ph applies to our project because of the fact that in pools pH levels are actually what determines how acidic or alkaline the pool water is. The pH in pools should be around 7.3-7.6. We are checking the pools we are going to for their pH levels because if it’s over the permissible range that could affect the human body and be extremely dangerous to swim in.

Calcium Hardness measures if your pool has a high level of minerals, including calcium, or a low level of minerals. Calcium hardness has to be between 200-400 ppm in a pool. A high level of minerals can lead to deposits and build up which can cause damage to your pool. A low level of minerals can reduce the effectiveness of sanitizers, such as chlorine and can corrode your pool. In this case you want just in the middle because both are the best for your pool, or even you!

Alkalinity is a buffer that keeps pH where its supposed to be and it helps prevent sudden changes in pH. A good alkalinity for a pool is around 80-120 ppm. When the alkalinity in a pool is to high, or too low it can affect the effectiveness of the chlorine in a pool or make the water more acidic, which can lead to irritation and dry skin. Alkaline is actually a huge factor of pH. Alkaline is actually on the pH scale you often see it on the far right side (over 7).

Free Chlorine is the amount of chlorine measured in parts per million (ppm). Free chlorine is what gets rid of bacterias and eliminates harmful microbes. Free chlorine is basically what chlorine is. The advised amount of free chlorine in a pool is 1-3 ppm. At around 5-15 ppm free chlorine can actually cause throat irritation.

Total Chlorine is combined chlorine plus free chlorine. So basically the sum of free chlorine and combined chlorine makes total chlorine. Total chlorine is made from combined chlorine, which is from the sweat, oil, skin and urine and is not allowed in pools. And free chlorine which is the amount of chlorine present in water as dissolved gas.

Total Bromine is the amount of bromine in 1 oxidation state, which is the oxidized form. Bromine is a dangerous fuming liquid and it has a reddish brown color. It dissolves quickly when exposed to air. Bromine has a powerful odor that can be irritating to the eyes, skin, and lungs.

Cyanuric Acid Levels are a pool balancing product that is used to help chlorine last longer. It forms a weak bond with free chlorine in the pool water which protects it from the sun's ultraviolet rays. Too much cyanuric acid can actually cause damage to humans, such as damage to the kidney tissue. This is why the permissible amount of cyanuric acid in a pool is 30-50 ppm.

We decided to choose Village Square Leisure Center as one of the pools we will be testing. We chose this because they are more populated and are relatively bigger than most pools in Calgary. If more people come, then there is more room for bacteria to sneak into these pools. If that many people are in a pool at the same time, the germs from one another can create bacteria and diseases, which can make you extremely ill.

One of the pools we decided to interview/test water quality at is Bob Bahan Swimming pool. This pool is used by many, even though it is pretty small. When more people are cramped in a small area, the bacteria on one another can pass through each person, which can lead to diseases. The way bacteria spreads is kind of how covid spreads (using this as an example not as a statement) it goes from one another by touch, air and even just being around someone with it. In other words, bacteria is extremely contagious. Bob Bahan offers many swimming lessons for everyone everyday, plus on top of that, the public pool is open almost every day.

Brookfield Residential Ymca is another highly populated pool. It's actually the largest Ymca in the world! That's an amazing achievement for Calgary but bigger pools are more prone to have contamination. We know that if more people attend such places there is more of a chance for people to come in contact with each other and that is one of the most common ways for bacteria to spread. There is more of a chance for bacteria to spread in a bigger and more populated pool than one with less people. (we did not get to test the water at this facility due to them being a private pool which does not allow as much information to go out as the public pools).

Manipulated Variable: Pools which we are testing at.

Responding Variable: The bacteria, pH, alkalinity, free chlorine, total chlorine, total bromine, calcium hardness and cyanuric acid levels

Controlled Variable: DIP & GO Pool test strips, How long we dip the strips in the water for (2 seconds), how long we wait to get the results from the strips (15 seconds), how much water we take from the pools to test (3ml), how many tests we conduct with the strips (5), how many water samples we take from each pool (5), interview questions, temperature of the pool, where we are testing in the pools (main pool)

Experiment #1

1. Go to a local pool and ask to test their water
2. Interview the aquatics team/people who test water
3. Go to the pool
4. Put on gloves
5. Take a strip out of DIP & GO Pool Test Strip container
6. Dip the strip into the pool water for 2 seconds
7. Gently shake off excessive water then wait 15 seconds
8. Compare results with the colour chart
9. See result and record into notebook
10. Repeat steps 5,6,7 and 8 five more times with 5 different strips
11. Observe the differences between the five strips (if any)

Experiment #2

1. Use Tiny Sample Containers to take water samples from the pool
2. Go home and bring out your microscope
3. Set the setting of the microscope to the lowest scanning objective lens (4x)
4. Slide the 10x eyepiece lens into the eyepiece tube
5. Put on gloves
6. Take out a slide 
7. Carefully slide the slide under the stage clips
8. Take out syringe 
9. Dip syringe into water and extract 1ml
10. Take syringe and pour the pool water on to the slide
11. Place eye over the microscope lens
12. Make the frame come into focus by rotating the coarse adjustment knob
13. To make the image more clear rotate the fine adjustment knob
14. Observe and record what you notice
15. When you see bacteria take a photo
16. Switch objective lens to 10x
17. Adjust until the picture is in focus
18. Observe and record
19. If bacteria spotted take a photo
20. Repeat all steps again for each sample you have from each pool

We saw that the pools we tested did indeed have bacteria. Meaning that the pools we swim in aren't as clean as we think and we could get serious illnesses that could turn into deadly diseases. Here are the obervations stated for each pool;

VILLAGE SQUARE:

Village Square 1: This sample is actually one of the cleanest samples taken at Village Square. The observations made at this pool were thin bacteria, long, coils, moving clumps, greenish, black and grey. When we referenced this bacteria to the bacterial chart we think that the bacterial forms that we saw were coccus, diplococcus and filamentous bacterias in this sample. These types of shapes can correspond with many type of bacterias but most of those bacterias are supposed to be exterminated by chlorine. So why are those bacterias still present? Well we think that maybe since the calcium hardness in this pool is pretty low, there could be a chance some of the pool got eroded and maybe some of these bacterias slipped under the system, but this is just an educated guess. We counted 17 cocci, 3 filamentous and 6 diplococcus.

Village Square 2: This particular sample that we took is the second cleanest sample. Our observations on this bacteria was circular black spots, coils, clumps, dot with ring around it, one long black thin strip. These bacterias that we saw could be apart of the coccus, the tetrads, the staphylococcus or the filamentous group. Most of these groups A red flag that popped up is that most tetrads actually die in chlorine, and cyanobacteria is actually one of the most common tetrads found in wastewater or swimming pools. Cyanobacteria actually gets killed by chlorine so we can not know for sure if this bacteria is cyanobacteria. We counted 16 cocci, 2 filamentous, 7 staphylococcus and 3 tetrads. 

Village Square 3: Village square sample number 3, is the third cleanest sample we took. The observations stated were, chunk of blackish gray bacteria, mini blackish circular bacteria, (a lot) no long black strips. Unlike the other tests that we have took, we could spot any bacterias from the filamentous (described as black strips). We did manage to find many coccus bacterias and three diplococcus bacterias. We counted 28 cocci and 3 diplococcus bacterias.

Village Square 4: Village square number 4 and number five have pretty similar results (which will be shown in the next slide). Our observations stated for this sample was, a long curly strand of hair like material, lots of black circular dots, some dots that were forming in tiny groups. Based on the bacterial chart we can make an educated guess that some of these bacteria fall under the groups of; filamentous, coccus, staphylococcus. We counted, 7 cocci, 3 filamentous and 8 staphylococcus.

Village Square 5: This sample (to us) was the dirtiest sample taken from village square. When we put our eye through the optical lens on the microscope we noticed, long thin bacteria, dot with ring around it, metallic colour, clumps of dots, black, tiny circles. Due to the shapes and sizes of the bacterias that we saw, we think these bacterias are: filamentous, cocci and staphylococcus. We counted 26 cocci, 4 filamentous, 7 staphylococcus.

BOB BAHAN:

Bob Bahan 1: Right off the bat we noticed that Bob Bahan had cleaner samples. In this sample, we could only notice a couple bacterias, our observations stated though are; long thin bacteria, dots of bacteria, small and round. According to the stated observations we can apply our knowledge and make an educated guess that these bacterias are apart of the; filamentous and coccus bacteria groups. We counted 4 filamentous and 11 cocci.

Bob Bahan 2: This is by far the most cleanest sample taken from any of the pools. We observed; cocci bacteria and diplococcus bacteria. We were so surprised to only find a couple of cocci and some diplococcus. In total there were 7 cocci and 3 diplococcus.

Bob Bahan 3: This is another one of the samples taken that were super clean. We noticed that these bacterias seen can fall under the coccus and filamentous group. We counted 3 filamentous bacterias and 8 cocci. 

Bob Bahan 4: In this particular sample we noticed there was more bacteria than the other samples. We can conclude that these bacterias are, filamentous, diplococcus and coccus bacterias. We counted 2 filamentous, 4 diplococcus and 7 cocci bacterias.

Bob Bahan 5: This is probably the sample that had the most bacteria. We noticed filamentous, diplococcus, staphylococcus and cocci bacterias. We counted 5 filamentous, 4 diplococcus, 3 staphylococcus and 13 cocci bacterias.

Village Square

Calcium Hardness: 100-150 ppm (min)

Free Chlorine: 3-4 ppm (ok)

Total Chlorine: 1-2 ppm (ok)

Total Bromine: 2 ppm (ok)

Total Alkalinity: 180 ppm (max)

pH Level: 7.6-7.8 (high)

Bob Bahan 

The results from bob bahan are actually the exact same as Village Square Leisure Center: 

Calcium Hardness: 100-150 ppm (min)

Free Chlorine: 3-4 ppm (ok)

Total Chlorine: 1-2 ppm (ok)

Total Bromine: 2 ppm (ok)

Total Alkalinity: 180 ppm (max)

pH Level: 7.6-7.8 (high)

But the part where we detirmine which pool is cleaner is yet to come, we looked under a microscope and  counted each bacteria in a 0.5ml drop:

Village square had a total of 130 bacteria in just the 5 small samples we took! This included 94 cocci, 12 filamentous, 9 diplococcus, 22 staphylococcus and 3 tetrads.

Bob bahan had a total of 74 bacteria in the samples, this is way better then the overwhelming amount of 130 bacteria. We recorded 46 cocci, 14 filamentous, 11 diplococcus and 3 staphylococcus. This brings our total of bacteria up to 74.

In conclusion the Village Square Leisure Center was much dirtier than the Bob Bahan swimming pool. Bob Bahan swimming pool was outstandingly clean. We were surprised by the results because the Bob Bahan pool was a pretty small pool and it is open almost every day. And the Village Square pool is a very large and open pool. But then again the Village Square pool is a very popular pool and it would make sense if it had more bacteria. Our hypothesis actually turned out to be correct. Always make sure to watch where you’re swimming, because who knows what can be in your local pool?

This information can spread awareness of exactly which bacteria infect pools and how the quality of pool water can affect one's health. With this information, individuals can better protect themselves from pool bacteria by disinfecting before and after they go for a swim. It helps keep visitors healthy and protected and can even help raise hygiene levels in the pools themselves. 

1. We bit off more than we can chew because we were really stressed about finishing this project and we needed an extension.

2. We put on too much information on our slides.

3. when we were using a sample slide we forgot to wipe it down with a bacterial killing wipe. This could have easily affected the results, but we made sure to re-do the test once we realized.

These are the websites where we got all our information of the bacteria from:

https://www.livestrong.com/article/254114-health-effects-of-high-chlorine-in-swimming-pools/

https://www.cdc.gov/norovirus/index.html

https://www.cdc.gov/habs/illness-symptoms-freshwater.html

https://www.cdc.gov/shigella/index.html

https://www.cdc.gov/ecoli/index.html

https://www.cdc.gov/parasites/giardia/index.html

https://www.health.state.mn.us/diseases/cryptosporidiosis/crypto.html#:~:text=Cryptosporidium%20is%20a%20parasite%20that,illness%20in%20the%20United%20States.

_{We acknowledge the hard work of our teachers providing us with enough reasources to be here, without them it would be impossible for this oppourtuinity to learn and grow. We acknowledge our parents for buying the supplies for our projects, as well as the others who gave us advice along the way. We acknowledge CYSF, as a way for us to grow and expand our knowledge of science and make us feel that we can do anything. Thank you for whoever as helped us in this journey and we are glad we were able to achive our goals in 2024!}