We slowed down and stayed in one place long enough to dig into those mysterious files that were left on Juan Tuno’s doorstep.

They are the strangest bunch of documents that most students have ever had to take notes on. For example, how do you take notes on emails between two people? How do you take notes on the cleaning schedule for the water slide? The news clippings were a little more straightforward, but they were not about the Gray area!

Whenever you take notes, it is key to know what the important information is. The detective part requires studying the information carefully enough that you can decide what is critical to write down. That’s the inference part of reading– you have to figure out the information that is not being told to you directly.

The second important part of the chlorine study is the comparison of the numbers of Daphnia counted upstream and downstream from the water slide. How is Juan Tuno able to construct a controlled experiment using a natural setting? It’s hard enough to make a controlled setting in a lab (just think of the drops on a penny). But how does a scientist do that on a stream? There is a way…

Finally, there is the whole E. coli business. Homework will help clear that part of the mystery up, as well as a little explanation in class.