Questions and Answers:

Mr Lingerfelt's class - What is the hydrophobic coating on the cardboard? It is a retail product called NeverWet.

Mrs Warner's class -Why there are bubbles when you boil water? Water can be in different states depending on how much energy it has. Low energy water is ice and then if we add energy the water changes into a liquid and behaves differently because the water molecules attach to each other in a different way. Add more energy to liquid water and it starts to boil, which means it starts turning from a liquid into a gas. Water gas can spread out into the air, so the bubbles you see is water in gas form being pushed out of the liquid and into the air.

William - Does water stick in space and on Mars? Yes, the stickiness of water (cohesiveness and adhesiveness) comes from the shape and composition of the water molecule. But in areas of low gravity (space and Mars) water does not have to fight the force of gravity, so more water can stay together than on Earth -  Watch Chris on the ISS

Mystery class - Where did water come from? The H (hydrogen) in H2O was formed soon after the universe came into being, the O (oxygen) is created inside stars and is spread through the universe when those stars explode. The current theory is that there wasn't a whole lot of water on Earth when it first formed 4.5 billion years ago, and water came from things crashing into the Earth later on - comets that were made of ice, or asteroids that had H and O as part of the chemicals that formed the rocks they were made out of. These rocks sunk into the Earth, melted and the H and O was able to form water.

What creates hydrogen?

Once upon a time, 15 billion years ago, everything started...I mean everything. We don't know how or why or really what happened, but everything started. It was super crazy hot, so hot that nothing could really exist, but everything (the universe) was expanding and getting bigger. As our universe got bigger it cooled down so about 0.0000000001 seconds later it was cool enough that tiny particles called electrons could exist. 0.0001 seconds later it was only 1000000000000 degrees, cool enough that larger particles called proton and neutrons could exist. Hydrogen is made of one proton and one neutron, but it took another 380000 years before it got cool enough for electrons to stick to protons and create H. Today it is possible to create H in nuclear fission reactions. (if you were actually asking how hydrogen can be produced, there are lots of ways to chemically transform materials that contain H in order to separate out the H, but H is not being created in these processes)

Where does our home water come from?

Some people have wells and pump the water out of underground aquifers. If you are connected to municipal water, the water in Niagara mostly comes from Lake Erie (it is higher up then Lake Ontario, so gravity will move the water for us rather than having to pump it)

Would it take a long time to build a pump in Africa?

Hard question. Wells can be drilled and up and running in 1-2 weeks, if there is a healthy aquifer to access. The bigger issue is whether there is healthy water to access. Pollution from industry or agriculture can make water from underground or from lakes and rivers unusable without treatment, and water cleaning is more costly in time, money and energy than getting the water. Strangely, the main hold up for why we haven't solved this problem already is that it takes so long for us to agree on what is important. Sometimes we are distracted by what is going on in our own lives that we don't realize that a problem exists or we choose to spend our time and money and energy on other things. 

Will water run out?

Will the planet Earth run out? Nope. There is lots of water and it is always being recycled. The water you drank today could have been peed out by a dinosaur. When we 'use' water we aren't destroying it, we are just dirtying it up, which means it needs to be cleaned before we use it again. Nature has ways of cleaning the water for us, but in certain areas we are dirtying the water faster than natural processes can clean it, so we have to either get better at cleaning the water after we use it, or even better, dirty up less water to start with. About 2 billion people (WHO 2017) don't have access to safe drinking water, so in practice, they have already run out. 

How much salt is in the ocean?

We'll need some math help here! According to NOAA’s (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) best guess, there are 321,003,271 cubic miles of water in the ocean. In one cubic mile of seawater, the weight of the salt in that seawater is estimated to be about 120 million tons since approximately 3.5 percent of the weight of seawater is salt. This means there is roughly 38.5 quadrillion tons of salt in the oceans. (or 35 quadrillion tonnes if we use the proper measurement) If you put it on land, it would cover everything to the height of a 40 storey building. (I got the data from https://medium.com/)

What happens if 3 hydrogens attach to one oxygen atom?

Generally this doesn't happen. The way chemistry works, each element has a specific number of binding sites, and O only has 2 that H can attach to. However, when you put Arrhenius acid in water, H3O+ can form, but it is not stable and breaks apart quickly. But somebody gave it a name - hydronium (or hydroxonium if you are in England)

How much water is underground?

We don't know. Most text books say that 97% of the planet's water is in the oceans, but just in the last 15 years, by studying the seismic waves created by earthquakes, scientists have found evidence of minerals that we'd only found in meteorites before. These minerals contain H and O and where they were found, 650km below the surface, the temperature and pressure would be enough to 'squeeze' the water out of the mineral. So it is possible that there could be an underground reservoir of water that is 3 times greater than what is in the oceans!

Ms. Nash’s Grade 4 Class: - Is there water in space, or only Earth?

Water originally came to Earth from space, so yes water is everywhere! Scientists get really excited about liquid water though, as all life that we have found so far need liquid water. So having evidence of liquid water on Mars and the Moon is very exciting because that might also mean there is life elsewhere.

Ms. Nash’s Grade 4 Class: - Is water alive?

We define living things as having the ability to change, use energy and reproduce, so by those definitions, no, water is not alive.

Ms. Nash’s Grade 4 Class - How much water do we have on Earth, compared to land?

71% of the planet Earth is covered in water, 29% land, but this will change as glaciers continue to melt due to climate change.

Mrs. Inglis​’ Grade 2/3 Class - Does dirty water change how water sticks?

It depends on the dirt. One way of measuring water's cohesiveness (it's ability to stick to itself) is surface tension. Try this - put some pepper on the surface of water...it floats on top right? That's because the water is busy sticking to water...it doesn't worry about sticking to the pepper. Now add a drop of soap. The soap makes it so the water is less cohesive, which changes how it interacts with the pepper.

Mr. Wales Grade 4 Class - ​How much of our body is water?

I gave you the wrong numbers during the show - adult men are about 60% water, women 55%, with kids and babies being even more watery.

Mrs. Gianfrancesco's Grade 3/4 Class - How much water is in the human body?

You do the math - weigh your body, multiply by 60% (if you are kid, this is a good guess). The result is the weight of the water in your body.