Graphic organizer Grade 11 Careers & CTE
Drumhaven Main Replacement: Eight Stages and Eight Job Titles
A grade 11 careers organizer tracing a fictional water main replacement through eight stages, naming the job title, the product, and the risk at each stage.
Objectives
- Students will sequence the eight stages of a water main replacement project.
- Students will name the job title responsible for each stage and the record it produces.
- Students will cite which of three project documents shows that a given stage occurred.
Vocabulary
- Condition assessment
- A checkup for pipes and equipment. Utilities inspect and test their systems to learn what is close to failing and what can safely wait a while longer.
Also: utility locate, preconstruction meeting, pressure test, bacteriological clearance, tie-in, as-built
Teacher overview
This organizer is a cause and effect chain of eight stages, drawn as a table that moves in one direction from condition assessment through project acceptance. Students name the job title at each stage, the record it produces, the consequence of skipping it, and which of three project documents proves it happened. Two misconceptions are worth naming first. Students often picture the utility's own crew digging the trench, when a capital replacement is usually built by a contractor and the utility's people appear as inspector, operator, and record keeper. Students also assume a new main is in service once it is buried and covered. Pressure testing, flushing, disinfection, and passing bacteriological samples all come before a single customer is connected to it, which is why stage six exists as its own link in the chain.
Organizer
Read the three source documents below. They all describe the same fictional Drumhaven project on Calverwick Avenue. Then fill in the chain. Write short phrases. In the last column, name the source and the line you used.
Source A: fictional Drumhaven project schedule
| Schedule line | Planned working days |
|---|---|
| S-1 Break history pulled and segment ranked | 5 |
| S-2 Plans and profile drawn, materials selected | 30 |
| S-3 Permits, easements, and utility locates cleared | 20 |
| S-4 Bid advertised, award, preconstruction meeting | 35 |
| S-5 Trench, lay 1,800 feet of pipe, backfill | 24 |
| S-6 Pressure test, flush, disinfect, bacteriological samples | 6 |
| S-7 Tie-in, valve operation, services transferred | 4 |
| S-8 As-built survey, mapping update, acceptance | 10 |
Source B: excerpt from the fictional Drumhaven pipe specification
| Spec line | Requirement |
|---|---|
| B-2 | Eight-inch ductile iron pipe, pressure class 350, with restrained joints at all bends |
| B-7 | Hydrostatic test held at 150 psi for two hours with leakage below the allowance in the table |
| B-9 | Disinfect the new main, then collect two sets of bacteriological samples taken at least 16 hours apart, both absent for coliform, before the main is placed in service |
| B-12 | Contractor shall mark all field changes in red on one set of plans and deliver them at closeout |
Source C: excerpt from the fictional construction inspector's daily log
| Log entry | What the inspector wrote |
|---|---|
| C-1, day 41 | Contractor exposed an unmarked gas service at station 6 plus 20; work stopped, gas utility notified, locates re-requested |
| C-2, day 58 | Held 150 psi for two hours, leakage within allowance; witnessed and signed |
| C-3, day 66 | Second sample set absent for coliform; released the main to operations for tie-in |
The chain
| Stage | Who does it, by job title | What this stage produces | What goes wrong if it is skipped | Which source line shows it |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Condition assessment and ranking | ||||
| 2. Design and material selection | ||||
| 3. Permits, easements, and utility locates | ||||
| 4. Bid, award, and preconstruction meeting | ||||
| 5. Excavation and pipe installation | ||||
| 6. Pressure test, disinfection, and clearance | ||||
| 7. Tie-in, valve operation, and service transfers | ||||
| 8. As-built records and acceptance |
From Water for Schools (waterforschools.org). This material is in the public domain (CC0) and may be copied, edited, and shared freely.
Completed Exemplar
| Stage | Who does it, by job title | What this stage produces | What goes wrong if it is skipped | Which source line shows it |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Condition assessment and ranking | Asset management technician, working with a GIS analyst | A ranked list of segments with break history, material, age, and consequence of failure | The utility replaces whichever pipe broke most recently rather than the pipe most likely to break next | Source A, line S-1 |
| 2. Design and material selection | Civil engineer, often with an engineer in training and a drafter | Plans and profile, a materials specification, and an engineer's estimate | Crews improvise fittings and depth in the field, and the estimate cannot be compared against bids | Source B, line B-2 |
| 3. Permits, easements, and utility locates | Permit coordinator and right-of-way agent, with the locate request answered by each utility's locator | Approved permits, signed easements, and marked underground utilities | An unmarked gas or fiber line is struck during excavation, which stops the job and endangers the crew | Source C, line C-1 |
| 4. Bid, award, and preconstruction meeting | Contract administrator with the project engineer | An awarded contract, a notice to proceed, and an agreed schedule and traffic plan | No one agrees in advance on hours, detours, or who signs for changes, so every dispute becomes a change order | Source A, line S-4 |
| 5. Excavation and pipe installation | Contractor's pipe crew and equipment operators, watched by the utility's construction inspector, with a surveyor setting line and grade | Installed pipe at the specified depth and alignment, with daily inspection reports | Joints, bedding, and restraint go unverified, and the defect is buried where no one can see it | Source A, line S-5 |
| 6. Pressure test, disinfection, and clearance | Contractor performs the work; the construction inspector witnesses it; the utility's water quality technician or laboratory analyst handles the samples | A signed pressure test record and two passing bacteriological sample sets | Contamination left in the new pipe reaches customers, and a leaking joint is found only after the street is paved | Source B, line B-9 and Source C, lines C-2 and C-3 |
| 7. Tie-in, valve operation, and service transfers | Water distribution operator directing valve operation, with the service crew transferring customers | A completed tie-in, a valve operation record, and notified customers | Valves are closed in the wrong order, which drops pressure in the zone and can pull contamination toward the main | Source A, line S-7 |
| 8. As-built records and acceptance | GIS technician updating the map, with the project engineer signing acceptance | Red-marked field changes turned into an updated map, plus a final payment and the start of the warranty period | The next crew digs from a drawing that does not match what is buried, which repeats the problem in stage three | Source B, line B-12 |
Differentiation
Support
Give students the chain with the job title column already filled and only the remaining three columns blank, and provide a word bank containing locate, easement, notice to proceed, restrained joint, bacteriological clearance, tie-in, and as-built. Allow the last column to be answered with the source letter alone rather than the full line number.
Extension
Have students add a ninth row for the one-year warranty inspection, naming who performs it, what it produces, and what goes wrong without it. Then ask them to identify which earlier stage a warranty defect would most often trace back to, and defend the choice in two sentences using the sources.
ELL supports
Pair each stage label with a plain restatement, for example stage three as "Find out what is already buried here" and stage six as "Prove the new pipe is clean and does not leak." Allow short phrases in every cell, and provide a labeled cross-section drawing of a trench showing pipe, bedding, backfill, and the marked utilities above it.
Extensions
Have students find a current water main replacement project in their own city or county, since most utilities post an active projects page with a map and a schedule, and match the posted milestones to the eight stages in this chain. Students can also interview a public works employee about which stage most often falls behind, then write two sentences on whether the answer matches the risk column they completed.