Worksheet Grade 5 Careers & CTE

The Kettleboro Water-Savings Plan: A Conservation Careers Worksheet

A grade 5 careers worksheet where students act as a water conservation specialist and use decimals to find how many gallons the Delgado family can save.

Grade: Grade 5
Subject: Careers & CTE
Material: Worksheet
Time: 30 min
Prep: No prep
Materials: None

Standards

5.NBT.B.7 Common Core Math

Add, subtract, multiply, and divide decimals to hundredths, using concrete models or drawings and strategies based on place value, properties of operations, and/or the relationship between addition and subtraction; relate the strategy to a written method and explain the reasoning used.

How this material aligns: Items 1, 2, and 8 multiply the decimal flow rate by minutes and subtract decimal totals, the multiply-and-subtract-decimals-to-hundredths work this standard names.

All materials for 5.NBT.B.7 →

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This material is in the public domain (CC0) and may be copied, edited, and shared freely, without attribution. Updated 2026-07-23.

Objectives

Students will multiply a decimal flow rate by minutes to find gallons used.
Students will compare two water-use choices and find the gallons saved.
Students will explain which change saves the most water over time.

Vocabulary

Flow rate: Flow rate measures how much water moves past a point in a certain amount of time, like gallons per minute through a garden hose. Bigger pipes and stronger pushes give bigger flow rates.

Also: conservation, gallon, leak

Teacher overview

A water conservation specialist helps families use less water and lower their bills. In this worksheet, students take that role for the Delgado family in the town of Kettleboro, a made-up town for this scenario. The family's shower and faucet numbers are set for this problem. Students use two real water-use facts, a standard showerhead at 2.5 gallons per minute and a water-saving showerhead at 2.0 gallons per minute, to find how many gallons the family can save.

The Kettleboro Water-Savings Plan: A Conservation Careers Worksheet — Grade 5 Careers & CTE

Name: ____________________________ Date: ______________

Student Worksheet

You are the water conservation specialist for the Delgado family. Show your work.

A standard showerhead uses 2.5 gallons per minute. One shower lasts 8 minutes. How many gallons does one shower use?
A water-saving showerhead uses 2.0 gallons per minute. How many gallons does one 8-minute shower use with this showerhead?
How many gallons does the family save per shower by switching to the water-saving showerhead?
Four people each take one shower a day. With the water-saving showerhead, how many gallons does the family save in one day?
How many gallons does the family save in one week of seven days?
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) says a faucet that drips once per second can waste more than 3,000 gallons a year. Use 3,000 gallons a year for each dripping faucet. The family has two dripping faucets. How many gallons do the two faucets waste in a year?
If the family fixes just one of the two dripping faucets, how many gallons of waste do they stop in a year?
A standard shower uses 2.5 gallons per minute. If the family shortens a shower from 8 minutes to 5 minutes, how many gallons do they save?
Which change saves more water in a whole year: switching to the water-saving showerheads or fixing one dripping faucet? Use your answers from problems 5 and 7 to explain.
In one sentence, explain why saving a small amount of water each day still matters over a long time.

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

Answer Key

Answer: 20 gallons. Multiply 2.5 by 8: 2.5 times 8 equals 20 gallons.
Answer: 16 gallons. Multiply 2.0 by 8: 2.0 times 8 equals 16 gallons.
Answer: 4 gallons. Subtract 16 from 20: 20 minus 16 equals 4 gallons saved per shower.
Answer: 16 gallons. Four showers save 4 gallons each: 4 times 4 equals 16 gallons saved in a day.
Answer: 112 gallons. Multiply 16 by 7: 16 times 7 equals 112 gallons saved in a week.
Answer: 6,000 gallons. Multiply 3,000 by 2: 3,000 times 2 equals 6,000 gallons wasted in a year.
Answer: 3,000 gallons. Fixing one of the two faucets stops one faucet's waste, which is 3,000 gallons a year.
Answer: 7.5 gallons. An 8-minute shower uses 2.5 times 8 equals 20 gallons; a 5-minute shower uses 2.5 times 5 equals 12.5 gallons; 20 minus 12.5 equals 7.5 gallons saved.
Answer: Switching the showerheads. It saves 112 gallons every week, which adds up to more than 5,000 gallons in a year, while fixing one faucet stops about 3,000 gallons a year.
Answer: Accept any reasonable sentence, such as: a small daily saving is repeated every day, so it adds up to a large amount over a month or a year.

Differentiation

Support

Give these students a filled-in first row showing that 2.5 times 8 equals 20 gallons, and let them use a calculator for the multiplication steps. Group problems so they finish 1 through 5 before starting the faucet problems.

Extension

Ask students to plan a full week for the family: add the weekly shower savings from problem 5 to one week's share of the yearly faucet savings from problem 7, and write two sentences telling the family which change to make first and why.

ELL supports

Pre-teach "flow rate," "gallon," "leak," and "save" with a picture for each. Provide a worked model of one multiplication problem, and allow the explanation items 9 and 10 to be answered with a sentence starter: "The family should ___ because ___."