UCSB Science Line
Sponge Spicules Nerve Cells Galaxy Abalone Shell Nickel Succinate X-ray Lens Lupine
UCSB Science Line
Home
How it Works
Ask a Question
Search Topics
Webcasts
Our Scientists
Science Links
Contact Information
I am doing a science fair project for my honors class and I am boiling water in the sun with a plastic bowl, aluminum foil, a small rock, and a small cup. I am planning that the salt water in the plastic bowl and letting it evaporate, which would allow precipitation to fall into the cup. Would the water inside the cup be fresh, allowing me to drink it? Or not?
Question Date: 2017-12-05
Answer 1:

This sounds like a great idea to test in your experiment! You can do a simple experiment to test this:

Leave a bowl of water and a bowl of salt open to air, and measure the weight before and after a day. Then see if the mass has changed, and why that might be. Equally, when you do your current experiment (taking salt water and evaporating it), try drinking the water to see if it is salty, and that might also tell you something.



Click Here to return to the search form.

University of California, Santa Barbara Materials Research Laboratory National Science Foundation
This program is co-sponsored by the National Science Foundation and UCSB School-University Partnerships
Copyright © 2020 The Regents of the University of California,
All Rights Reserved.
UCSB Terms of Use