Social Media Campaign; Infographic |
PURPOSE:
The main point of this project was to create a social media campaign to inform people of a system that has been or currently is out of equilibrium, what that causes, and how it can be fixed.
COncepts:Chemical Equilibrium - is when the product and reactant of a reaction are changing at the same rate. When one side of the reaction has stress applied to it, the reaction must change to maintain balance. The applied stress can be in the form of increasing/decreasing the amount of a compound on one side of the reaction, applying pressure, and changing the temperature. This causes one side of the reaction to either increase in a forwards direction or reverse direction. In ocean acidification, carbonic acid is formed in the equation CO2(aq) + CO3(aq) + H2O <=> HCO3(aq). When we add carbon dioxide into the atmosphere its absorbed by the ocean and creates more carbonic acid based on Le Chatelier's principle. Along with this is the effect it has on creating less calcium carbonate since carbon dioxide is added, seen in the equation Ca(aq) + 2HCO3(aq) <=> CaCO3 + CO2(aq) + H2O.
Le Chatelier's Principle - states that, the equilibrium in a system will shift in order to counteract the change caused by a form of stress. In the first equation above, since CO2 is added, then the other side of the equation, the HCO3, must increase. In the second equation, since CO2 is added, Ca + 2HCO3 increases causing a lack of CaCO3 since its on the same side of "the balance" as the CO2. This is a problem because many aquatic species rely on CaCO3 to survive. Reflection:I really enjoyed this project as it gave us the ability to research something that we are truly interested in and educate others on the problem. Parts of this project were very difficult as it can be hard to find an equation for the chemical equilibrium of certain systems and that caused me to discard my first potential topic. I'm glad I happened to stumble upon the topic of ocean acidification because I have always loved the coast and the ocean so I was more inclined to dig deeper when researching the subject. I was able to find plenty of information on my topic as it is a large problem because of its ecological impacts on the ocean and aquatic species. I think one thing I could have worked on if we had more time was making my supporting document a little better with more information. The main point of the project was to create a social media campaign about the problem so i primarily focused on that but I am very happy with the way my infographic came out. I think this project went really well and had a lot of fun doing it as I was deeply interested in my subject.
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