Lesson plan Grade 6 Careers & CTE
A Shift at Coyote Mesa Pump Station: Career Exploration
A 45-minute grade 6 careers lesson where students read a pump station operator's profile, build a career card, and weigh the role's tasks and education path.
Objectives
- Students will describe the daily tasks and the licensing path of a water pump station operator.
- Students will evaluate which parts of the pump operator role would suit their own interests.
Vocabulary
- Pump station
- A pump station is a building full of powerful pumps that push water through pipes or lift it uphill. Pumps give water the extra push that gravity alone cannot provide.
Also: pumping, on call, operator license
Teacher overview
Water cannot flow uphill on its own; in many towns, pumps lift it toward homes on higher ground and push it through miles of pipe. The people who run those pumps are pump station operators. This lesson has students read a profile of one such operator, build a career card that captures the job's tasks and education path, and decide which parts of the work would suit them. It is a career-exploration lesson, so students reason from a provided profile rather than compute a single answer.
Procedure
Hook (5 min): Ask the class how water reaches homes on top of a hill when the treatment plant sits in the valley below. Collect ideas. Reveal that utilities use pump stations to lift and pressurize water, and that an operator keeps each station running.
Direct instruction (10 min): Explain what a pump station does and introduce the pump station operator role. Distribute the Student Handout, which contains a profile of Rafael Ortiz at a fictional station. Read the first section aloud so all students start with the same picture of the job. Point out that this operator role follows a licensing path, not a college-degree path.
Read and build a career card (15 min): Students read the full profile and complete the career card in the handout: the operator's daily tasks, the tools and systems used, the education path, and one part of the job each student would enjoy and one they would find hard. Circulate and prompt students to quote the profile for each entry.
Small-group discussion (10 min): In groups of three or four, students compare their cards and answer discussion questions 1 through 5 in the handout. Each group agrees on answers for questions 1 through 4 and shares individual opinions for question 5.
Closure / formative check (5 min): On an index card, each student names which education path this job follows, an operator license or an engineering degree, and gives one reason from the profile. Collect and scan; if several students name the engineering-degree path, revisit the "Getting the job" section before the next class.
Student Handout
Read this profile of a pump station operator at Coyote Mesa Pump Station, a fictional station run by a water cooperative. Then complete the career card and questions.
Rafael Ortiz, pump station operator. Rafael keeps water moving to homes spread across a wide, hilly service area. His station holds several large electric pumps. During a shift he watches the control screen that shows each pump's status, the water level in the storage tank, and the pressure in the pipes leaving the station, which he keeps between about 45 and 65 psi. He starts and stops pumps to match how much water the town is using, which is higher in the morning and evening. He listens and feels for pumps that run hot or shake, greases and cleans the equipment, and records readings in a log. When a pump or a power line fails, pressure can drop and homes can lose water, so an operator is on call day and night to respond fast. Rafael says the best part of the job is solving problems quickly, and the hardest part is being on call.
Getting the job. This role follows the operator path: a high school diploma, on-the-job training under a licensed operator, and a state license earned by exam, with higher license classes for larger systems. Pump operators are counted with water and wastewater system operators, who earned a median of $60,020 per year as of May 2025. About 10,000 operator openings are projected each year from 2025 to 2035, all from replacing workers who retire or move to other jobs.
Career card. Complete each row using the profile: (a) two daily tasks, (b) two tools or systems the operator uses, (c) the education path, (d) one part you would enjoy, (e) one part you would find hard.
- In one sentence, what is the main purpose of a pump station?
- Name two specific tasks Rafael does during a shift.
- Does this job follow the operator-license path or the engineering-degree path? Give one detail from the profile that shows this.
- Why does a pump station need an operator who is on call at night?
- Rafael says the best part of the job is solving problems quickly and the hardest part is being on call. Which of those would matter more to you, and why?
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: A pump station lifts and pressurizes water so it keeps flowing to homes, especially those on higher ground or far from the treatment plant.
- Answer: Any two of: watching the control screen, starting and stopping pumps to match demand, checking for pumps that run hot or shake, greasing and cleaning equipment, recording readings, or responding when a pump or power line fails.
- Answer: The operator-license path. The profile says the job needs a high school diploma, on-the-job training, and a state license earned by exam, not a college engineering degree.
- Answer: Pumps and power can fail at any hour, and when they do the pressure drops and homes can lose water, so an operator must be on call to restart the system quickly.
- Answer: Answers will vary. A strong response names one of the two parts (fast problem-solving or being on call) and gives a personal reason connected to the student's own interests or schedule.
Differentiation
Support
Provide a career card with the row labels already filled in as sentence starters ("Two daily tasks are..."), and highlight the two profile sentences that answer questions 3 and 4 so students can locate the evidence quickly.
Extension
Ask students to write three interview questions they would ask Rafael to decide whether they would want his job, and to explain what a good answer to each question would tell them about the role.
ELL supports
Pre-teach "pump station," "pumping," "on call," and "operator license" with a simple diagram of a pump lifting water uphill to a tank. Allow the career card to be completed with short phrases and permit oral answers for question 5.