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Classroom activity Grade 4 Art & Music

Where Used Water Goes: An Otter Bend Mural Relay

A grade 4 movement activity where teams relay between four stations to build a class mural showing how used water is cleaned and returned to the river.

Objectives

  1. Students will build a four-panel mural showing how used water is cleaned.
  2. Students will put the cleaning steps in the correct order.
  3. Students will write informative captions for each step.

Vocabulary

Wastewater
Wastewater is used water from sinks, showers, toilets, and businesses that goes down the drain. It travels through sewer pipes to a treatment plant to be cleaned before returning to nature.

Also: screen, settle, mural

Teacher overview

This is a whole-class movement activity for four teams that builds a class mural about the fictional town of Otter Bend, where used water from homes is cleaned before it returns to the river. Four stations stand for the four steps in order, and teams relay from station to station, adding one picture and reading the step's fact card each round, so the mural grows as the teams move. The relay teaches the sequence because every team works on all four steps, and the class then reads the finished panels in order from Step 1 to Step 4.

Activity Directions

  1. Before class, hang four large panels around the room, labeled Step 1, Step 2, Step 3, and Step 4, and tape a fact card at each. Step 1: used water leaves homes through pipes and travels to the plant. Step 2: screens catch big trash such as rags and wipes. Step 3: the water sits still in a tank so heavy solids settle to the bottom. Step 4: tiny living helpers, called good bacteria, clean the leftover waste, and the cleaned water flows back to the river.
  2. Divide the class into four teams and send each team to a different starting station. Explain that used water is the water that goes down home drains, and that the plant cleans it before returning it to the river.
  3. Round one lasts four minutes. At their station, each team reads the fact card aloud, then draws one picture on the panel that shows that step.
  4. When the timer sounds, each team moves to the next station in number order, with the team at Step 4 moving to Step 1, so every team visits all four steps.
  5. Run four rounds so every team visits all four panels and adds a picture to each. In the fourth round, each team also writes one caption sentence that explains the step at its station.
  6. After the fourth round, line the four panels up in order on the wall to form the class mural.
  7. Read the mural together from Step 1 to Step 4, following the used water from the homes to the clean river.
  8. End the activity once the mural is assembled and hold the debrief.

From Water for Schools (waterforschools.org). This material is in the public domain (CC0) and may be copied, edited, and shared freely.

Answer Key
  1. Debrief question: "What are the four steps in order?" Answer: Step 1, used water leaves homes through pipes; Step 2, screens catch big trash; Step 3, the water settles so solids sink; Step 4, good bacteria clean the water and it returns to the river.
  2. Debrief question: "What do the tiny helpers, the good bacteria, do?" Answer: The good bacteria clean the leftover waste in the water so the water is safe enough to flow back to the river.
  3. Debrief question: "Why must used water be cleaned before it reaches the river?" Answer: Used water carries waste and dirt from homes, so cleaning it first protects the fish, plants, and people who use the river downstream.

Differentiation

Support

Give these teams a simple picture prompt at each station, such as an outline of a screen or a tank, so they add details rather than starting each drawing from nothing. Pair a strong reader with each team to read the fact cards.

Extension

Ask a team to add a small "before and after" strip to the Step 4 panel, showing the water dark and dirty as it arrives and clear as it leaves, and to write one sentence about the change.

ELL supports

Read each fact card aloud with the class before the relay starts, and add a simple icon to every card, such as a pipe, a screen, a tank, and a river. Allow captions to be a short labeled phrase matched to the picture.

Extensions

Compare the class mural with a simple diagram of a real water reclamation plant from a public utility page, and mark which steps match. Students can discuss what happens to the trash the screens catch and where it goes after it is removed.