Track: High School and Middle School STEM Competition

Abstract

The main purpose of our experiment is to find an alternative to road salt, specifically sodium chloride because it has many downfalls that harm the environment, such as turning freshwater salty, harming aquatic animals and land animals, harming plants, and harming buildings. Our question is, “Which salt, calcium chloride, magnesium chloride, potassium chloride, or sodium chloride, melts snow the fastest and harms the environment the least?” To do this, we set up 12 trays and set concrete into ¾ of it. We placed grass into the other ¼ of the tray. We placed snow on the concrete and placed salt on the snow. We put one type of salt for three trays. It took an average of 35.6 minutes for the snow to melt with calcium chloride, 51 minutes with magnesium chloride, 25 minutes with potassium chloride, and 55.6 minutes with sodium chloride. The pH level of the grass started off with a 7, and after calcium chloride, it was an average of 8, 8.3 for magnesium chloride, 11 for potassium chloride, and 12.3 for sodium chloride. This shows that potassium chloride melts snow the fastest but calcium chloride harms the environment the least.