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=**Ideas for Group 4 Project**=
 * 1) Water
 * 2) Trash in Hanoi
 * 3) Sports
 * 4) Westlake/Tay Ho
 * 5) Biofuels
 * 6) The apple
 * 7) The waterfall
 * 8) Plant growth
 * 9) Eco-friendly Campus
 * 10) Conservation

Brainstorming

Abstract:

The purpose of our group's investigation that focuses around the West Lake is to investigate to what extend the water in the lake is polluted, and to find out how this affects the local people living around the lake. We investigated the question from different perspectives, from testing the water quality, to measuring the biodiversity, to interviewing the local people. The physicists of the group made it their task to compare the refractive index of the lake water to that of distilled water, as to see if there was a notable difference, which would indicate the uncleanliness of the water. But despite the murky brown color of the water, we found that in the end, the refractive indexes where actually very close to each other and to the known value of 1.33. The chemists investigated metals in the water, they wanted to see if there are any metals such as zinc, aluminum, etc, present in the water. The impact that these metals can have on wildlife is horrific, after testing with H2SO4 and NaOH there was no reactions and therefore no metals present. The Biologists experiment investigated the biodiversity of the plant species and compares the biodiversity of two areas, Area 1 (species near the high wall), and Area 2 (species near the shore), using the Simpson's Diversity Index. It was found that Area 2 was more diverse as more soil reduces erosion and contained more minerals for plant growth. The environmentalist went into surveying fishermen to find out why they are doing this and what they think about the water pollution in West Lake. Some fishermen were doing this for pleasure and some did for living. Everyone one thought that there were some extent of pollution in West Lake. The pollution was evident when we looked at the lake.