| | Category | EV | L18 | What Safe Detergent is Most Effective in Cleaning Birds in an Oil |
| | Spill? |
| | Abstract | When an oil spill occurs, the lives of thousands of animals are put into |
| | danger. Birds are especially vulnerable to oil for many reasons – the water |
| | resistance in their feathers is reduced, and they are more subject to |
| | hypothermia and being eaten by predators. In this project, the goal was to |
| | find the detergent - out of the five most commonly used to clean birds in an |
| | oil spill – that would clean the birds the most efficiently and effectively. |
| | Using the image processing features from a program called MATLAB, I |
| | was able to establish how well each detergent preformed, based on its |
| | cleaning index, the coefficient of variation, and the cleaning index |
| | normalized with time. After dipping twenty feathers for each detergent in |
| | dirty motor oil, they were assigned a number from 0-250, 0 being the |
| | darkest black and 250 being the lightest white. After thoroughly cleaning |
| | them with the detergent, I scanned them once more to determine their |
| | improvement and determined the other factors I listed above. |
| | I concluded that the brand that was most used did not perform to what I |
| | expected it to; it was outshined by the others that I tested. Out of the five I |
| | tested, a brand called “Biokleen” turned out the best, winning the two out |
| | of three ways that I analyzed my data. To save more birds, it is important |
| | to adapt a cleaner to fit their needs, and one that will work faster and more |
| | efficiently. |
| | Bibliography | • http://www.ibrrc.org/oil_affects.html |
| | • http://library.thinkquest.org/CR0215471/oil_spills.htm |
| | • http://intbirdrescue.blogspot.com/ |
| | • http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/06/caught_in_the_oil.html |
| | • http://news.discovery.com/earth/oil-spill-clean-up-valdez.html |
| | • http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36917020/ns/technology_and_science- |
| | science/ |
| | • http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/wilderness-resources/photos/gulf-oil- |
| | spill-cleanup-efforts/bird-rescue-in-action |
| | • http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/wilderness-resources/photos/gulf-oil- |
| | spill-cleanup-efforts/rounding-up-oiled-birds |