science

Sawyer Water Purification Plant

Sawyer Water Purification Plant is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Sawyer Water Purification Plant rather than just read about it. In short: The Sawyer Water Purification Plant, formerly the South Water Purification Plant, is the first water filtration plant built in the City of Chicago. When completed in 1947, it was the largest such plant in the world.

Key takeaways

Sawyer Water Purification Plant belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Sawyer Water Purification Plant to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Sawyer Water Purification Plant from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The Sawyer Water Purification Plant, formerly the South Water Purification Plant, is the first water filtration plant built in the City of Chicago. When completed in 1947, it was the largest such plant in the world.

History The plant was under construction for many years, slowed by the Great Depression. Its construction was approved in 1930 and the plant began operation in 1947. Water is drawn from a crib in Lake Michigan that has an intake about 20–30 feet below the surface of the lake and is then drawn through a tunnel below the lake bed to the treatment plant, and then put through several steps to filter suspended particles and add chemicals including chlorine to disinfect the water. This system relies on pumps, not on gravity flow, to move the clean water. Two main cribs are about 2.5 miles away from the shore. The 68th Street / Dunne cribs feed water to this filtration plant. This plant was the largest filtration plant in the world until Chicago completed its second filtration plant, the Central plant (now called the Jardine Water Purification Plant) was completed in 1964. On September 19, 2016, the City of Chicago renamed the South Water Purification Plant to the Sawyer Water Purification Plant to honor the former Mayor Eugene Sawyer. The water filtration plant is located at 3300 E. Cheltenham Place on the South Side along the lake near Rainbow Beach Park.

Clean water supply for Chicago and nearby suburbs This plant and the Jardine Water Purification Plant supply the water for the City of Chicago and many surrounding suburbs that purchase their drinking water from the City of Chicago, about 1 billion gallons a day. The city of Chicago has voted for a major renovation of the filtration plant in 2020. The work is estimated at $74.5 million, and will include restoration of the roof of the 1941 building and a 1964 addition.

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Sawyer Water Purification Plant

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Sawyer Water Purification Plant claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Sawyer Water Purification Plant before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Sawyer Water Purification Plant ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Sawyer Water Purification Plant

In research: Sawyer Water Purification Plant appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Sawyer Water Purification Plant in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Sawyer Water Purification Plant is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Chicago stubs, Government of Chicago, Water treatment facilities, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Sawyer Water Purification Plant outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Sawyer Water Purification Plant in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Sawyer Water Purification Plant means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Sawyer Water Purification Plant out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Sawyer Water Purification Plant in simple terms?

Why does Sawyer Water Purification Plant matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Sawyer Water Purification Plant?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Sawyer Water Purification Plant.