If you have done any research or independent study outside of school, please include an abstract or summary of your work.
As a person bred in and accustomed to typical Chinese rural landscape, with no decent buildings but paddies and shabby houses, I was amazed by the impressive scenery of countryside in Suzhou, a city in the richest area of China, when I entered the high school. In rural Suzhou, factories side by side occupy the space that is intended for farmland; bustling freeways spread in the rural place. Later on, I learned from the textbook that the scenery I witnessed is due to urbanization. Curious about the magical phenomenon, I organized an interest group with several classmates hoping to learn more about impacts of urbanization on the environment. Kunshan Economic & Technological Development Zone (KETDZ), a developed rural area is the first place that we carried out our research. A river there called Liu He attracted out attention as the experiments on pollution of the river can partly reflect the contamination conditions of the whole area.
We brought back the water samples from Liu He and conducted experiments in the school's chemical laboratory by applying chemical reagents such as ferrous ammonium sulphate and potassium dichromate. Using some of the reagents for the first time, we are quite unfamiliar with them and data collected from each group differed greatly. One experiment after another, we tried to collect similar date. Eventually, we succeed but much out of the expectation, some basic items such as chromium and Permanganate index are far beyond the standard level. Other rivers had similar results according to our investigation afterwards. We had realized the influence of urbanization on the environment before, but not until we performed the experiment were we aware of the seriousness of the problem. Luckily, some cities like Bao Ding and He Fei have proposed the idea of eco-city in their Government Reports. However, they are still the minority because of too much emphasis on economic growth in China.
I really appreciate this research. Not only did I learn a variety of chemistry experimental methods, but more importantly, I did not limit myself to the environment impressions from textbooks and got the first-hand impressions about the pollution of the environment. The experience makes me more determined to be an environmental engineer, a noble vocation that helps create a better world. Through the active environment participation academically and socially in the University, I believe I can be a qualified engineer in the future, contributing my own time and energy to the society.
As a person bred in and accustomed to typical Chinese rural landscape, with no decent buildings but paddies and shabby houses, I was amazed by the impressive scenery of countryside in Suzhou, a city in the richest area of China, when I entered the high school. In rural Suzhou, factories side by side occupy the space that is intended for farmland; bustling freeways spread in the rural place. Later on, I learned from the textbook that the scenery I witnessed is due to urbanization. Curious about the magical phenomenon, I organized an interest group with several classmates hoping to learn more about impacts of urbanization on the environment. Kunshan Economic & Technological Development Zone (KETDZ), a developed rural area is the first place that we carried out our research. A river there called Liu He attracted out attention as the experiments on pollution of the river can partly reflect the contamination conditions of the whole area.
We brought back the water samples from Liu He and conducted experiments in the school's chemical laboratory by applying chemical reagents such as ferrous ammonium sulphate and potassium dichromate. Using some of the reagents for the first time, we are quite unfamiliar with them and data collected from each group differed greatly. One experiment after another, we tried to collect similar date. Eventually, we succeed but much out of the expectation, some basic items such as chromium and Permanganate index are far beyond the standard level. Other rivers had similar results according to our investigation afterwards. We had realized the influence of urbanization on the environment before, but not until we performed the experiment were we aware of the seriousness of the problem. Luckily, some cities like Bao Ding and He Fei have proposed the idea of eco-city in their Government Reports. However, they are still the minority because of too much emphasis on economic growth in China.
I really appreciate this research. Not only did I learn a variety of chemistry experimental methods, but more importantly, I did not limit myself to the environment impressions from textbooks and got the first-hand impressions about the pollution of the environment. The experience makes me more determined to be an environmental engineer, a noble vocation that helps create a better world. Through the active environment participation academically and socially in the University, I believe I can be a qualified engineer in the future, contributing my own time and energy to the society.
