Would measuring pollution in different lakes be considered an experiment or research for an EE?

[Adolfs]

Hello,

I am preparing for my extended essay in biology. Reading the extended–essay–for–dummies I spotted:

If you are doing a science-based EE, ALWAYS do your own experiment, research EEs will not do well

Therefore I started wondering whether measuring pollution in different lakes would be considered an experiment or research.

[Ella_F]

If you have a way to physically measure pollution in different lakes, then I think that would be a good Biology EE. However, you would need to have a point- as in, why would different lakes have different pollution levels? Are they in different locations? Do they contain different amounts of aquatic plants filtering the water? Also, what is 'pollution'? What specific chemical or substance are you testing the water for? 

Additionally, I'm assuming this would be quite an unrealistic thing for any high-schooler to do, since it would require specific equipment (to measure the pollution) and a lot of time to travel around and conduct experiments on lakes. Therefore, you could make this into a World Studies EE, combining biology-specific explanations and ecological science about established data (i.e. research) along with maybe a geographical or economical analysis on what impact this has on the community. 

Good luck!