Our Topic is regarding the crisis in Japan and our first goal is to find an appropriate narrowed research topic. Our first impression was to investigate the earthquake itself and the formation of tsunami's. The problem was that we were very unsure how we would test any of our research. So instead we thought that maybe we should do an investigation on how to survive tsunami's. However, once again the availability of data and the ability to conduct our own experiment was very limited. Finally, we came to the conclusion that we should focus on what seems to be having the longest lasting effect, that being the radiation. We decided that we should investigate in more detail about the radiation present in Japan, including what radioactive isotopes are presents, from a biological perspective what happens to a human when exposed to radiation, and finally what steps can be taken to reduce the radiation that one is exposed to, especially in a situation like Japan.

From the last question we were able to build upon this and realize the potential for an experiment. Through online research we were able to discover that in Japan currently, it is caesium 137 and iodine 131 that are causing most of the complications. Then we researched some methods for removing this, especially from drinking water. It turns out, that currently all over the world, water treatment centers have for years already used a multitude of methods to remove radioactive isotopes from water supplies. The two main methods are through absorption/filtration and through precipitation. Both of these methods are possible to test in an experiment.

So what we would like is to test different measures on their ability to remove radioactive materials. Basically we will be keeping constant the amount of solute and solvent that we use for each method, in this case likely iodine and water, and then apply a method and then measure to see the percent of the original solvent that is left.

First we would like to conduct an experiment on precipitation using non-radioactive forms of iodine and if possible caesium. The ions that will precipitate iodine are tin ion, titanium ion, lead ion, Bi3+, ag+, hg+, and hg2+. So therefore we need a few compounds that will dissociate into these ions in order to precipitate the iodine. If possible we are trying to find household compounds that contain these elements in order to make the experiment more applicable to the situation and the many people without proper access to a full chemistry lab.

The second part of the lab would be testing other filter and absorption methods. What we plan on doing is testing lime and activated charcoal. We will add both of the compound into the mixture, mix it around for a fixed period of time (likely between 5 and 10 minutes) and then use filter paper to get rid of all the added solid which has hopefully also absorbed some of the iodine/caesium. The other two things that we would like to test are a little more interesting in the sense that we can find or make them in our natural environment. Reading online, we found many claims that blue green algae has absorption like properties and that during the aftermath of Hiroshima in Japan it was tested and reportedly it reduced radioactive material in water drastically. We should be able to find some of this in the bay, or at mathieson Lake. The other material that we would like to test is normal charcoal that we would make ourselves from burning wood exposed to relatively little oxygen and then crushing it before adding it to the water. In this sense we can ensure that in our experimental results we will be able to apply it to the average person living in Japan without access to fancy lab equipment.