Dr. Jorge Alvarez High School - Mission Earth

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The Mashapaug Pond is in Providence Rhode Island. It is surrounded by Alvarez High School and houses. There used to be a factory near the pond. Throughout the past centuries the pond was contaminated with dangerous chemicals, metals and disgusting things floating. It was unsafe for humans to be around and nobody could swim. This made the pond unsafe to be around. It was unhealthy for the environment and for the organisms living around it or in it. After a lot of years of people trying to get it clean and healthy for the environment it is better than how it used to be. There are no chemicals or any type of dangerous things floating or chemicals in the pond. It is safe for the humans to be around the Mashapaug Pond. The water temperature of the pond can affect the quality of the pond by holding less dissolved oxygen or holding a lot more oxygen than normal. This can cause the fishes and other living organisms in the pond to not survive a long time.

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The mashapaug pond has been around for hundreds of years. Over time the pond would go from a drinking source and swimming spot for local kids and families to being drastically changed to a toxic polluted inhabitable and unhealthy pond. The gorham company polluted that pond with so much toxic waste and other chemicals that today it's dangerous to go near. The pollution was so bad that the dissolved oxygen in the water would be around 2.9 to 4.5 which is terrible due to the fact that healthy water is usually from 6-8.5 ml of dissolved oxygen. This is inhabitable for animals and drinking wise, the pollution really altered the dissolved oxygen of mashapaug pond and to this day the water is still the same. Inhabitable.

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What do you know about the Mashapaug pond site? The Mashapaug pond was once healthy and clean until people started dumping waste, garbage, industrial chemicals, animal waste and other pollutants which went into the soil and water and caused the pond to be very harmful and dirty. Because of this, not only human health were endangered but also animal health too. The Mashapaug Pond was not looked at until last century because people thought what they were doing won’t affect or cause harm. Now they are taking actions in filtering the air, building school, and making sure the conditions at the pond don't get worse. How does your variable affect the quality of the pond? My variable affects the quality of the pond and plays a big role in many ways for example, if the temperature is low, the dissolved oxygen is low which suffocates and kills animals in the pond like fish. Another example is that, when water temperature is cold, it holds more dissolved oxygen which leads to more oxygen and aquatic life needs less oxygen at this time.