Graphic organizer Grade 7 Careers & CTE
Stop or Keep Going? Decisions on a Bramthorne Pipe Crew
A grade 7 careers organizer mapping five judgment calls a fictional lead service line crew faces in one day, with the rule, the decider, and the next step.
Objectives
- Students will match a workplace situation to the rule or practice that governs it.
- Students will name which role decides in each situation on a pipe replacement crew.
- Students will explain how a drinking water policy reaches a household through crew decisions.
Vocabulary
- Service line
- A service line is the small pipe that connects the water main under the street to the plumbing inside one home or building. It is the last leg of the trip water makes to your tap.
- Action level
- A trigger number in lead and copper testing. If too many homes test above this level, the utility must take steps like improving treatment and telling the public.
Also: crew leader, flushing, consent form
Teacher overview
This organizer is a five-row decision frame rather than a cycle or a comparison chart, because the work it maps is a series of judgment calls made in a trench. Each row starts with what a crew member sees, then asks which rule applies, who decides, and what happens next. A replacement crew stops several times a day to check a rule, reach a supervisor, or knock on a door, and those pauses are the part of the work that protects the household.
Organizer
The fictional Bramthorne Water Department is taking out old lead pipes on one street. A service line is the pipe that runs from the street main into a house. Rules now say a utility must replace nearly all of its lead lines within ten years. EPA estimates that about 4 million lead service lines are still in use across US water systems. The lead action level is 15 ppb today, and it drops to 10 ppb in 2027.
Fill in the three empty columns for each row. Use the two lists in the table below.
| Rules and practices to choose from | People who may decide |
|---|---|
| Take out the whole line, both sides | Crew leader |
| Get written consent before work on private property | Utility inspector |
| Flush the new line before the household uses it | Compliance coordinator |
| A result above the action level means notice and follow-up | Customer service representative |
| Old galvanized pipe below the lead comes out too | Homeowner |
| What the crew member sees | Which rule or practice applies | Who decides | What happens next |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. The city side is lead, and the customer's side is lead too | |||
| 2. Nobody is home, and the consent form is unsigned | |||
| 3. Water runs cloudy right after the new line is connected | |||
| 4. A tap sample at the house next door comes back at 12 ppb | |||
| 5. The pipe past the old lead line is galvanized steel |
Policy question. Pick one row and name the rule behind it. Then write one sentence telling what would happen to the family in that house if the crew skipped the step.
From Water for Schools (waterforschools.org). This material is in the public domain (CC0) and may be copied, edited, and shared freely.
Completed Exemplar
| What the crew member sees | Which rule or practice applies | Who decides | What happens next |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. The city side is lead, and the customer's side is lead too | The whole line gets replaced, including the customer's side | Crew leader, with the utility inspector confirming | The crew replaces both sides in the same visit rather than leaving half the lead in the ground |
| 2. Nobody is home, and the consent form is unsigned | Written consent is needed before work on private property | Homeowner, reached by the customer service representative | Work stops at the property line, a door hanger is left, and the address returns to the schedule |
| 3. Water runs cloudy right after the new line is connected | Flush the new line before the household uses it | Crew leader | The crew flushes until the water clears, shows the resident how to flush taps, and records the time |
| 4. A tap sample at the house next door comes back at 12 ppb | A result above the action level triggers notice and follow-up | Compliance coordinator | The result sits below the 15 ppb level in force now and above the 10 ppb level coming in 2027, so the coordinator schedules a repeat sample and sends the household filter guidance |
| 5. The pipe past the old lead line is galvanized steel | Galvanized pipe that sat downstream of lead is replaced too | Utility inspector | The inspector adds the galvanized section to the work order, because it can hold lead released from the old pipe |
Policy question, sample response. Row 1 follows the rule that the whole service line is replaced rather than only the part the utility owns. If the fictional Bramthorne crew left the customer's side in place, the household would still drink through lead pipe, and the disturbance from the partial job could release more lead than before.
Differentiation
Support
Give these students rows 1 and 3 already completed as models, and shorten each bank to the items still needed. Allow the last column to be answered with a phrase such as "flush and record."
Extension
Ask these students to write a sixth row for a situation the fictional Bramthorne crew has not met yet, such as finding a second unmarked line into the same house, and to name the rule, the decider, and the next step they would expect.
ELL supports
Pre-teach service line, consent, flush, action level, and galvanized with one short definition and one picture each. Provide a frame for the policy question: "The rule says ___. If the crew skipped it, the family would ___." Allow phrase-level answers in the table cells.
Extensions
Ask students to find whether their own water utility publishes a service line inventory map and to note what the map says about their street. A short discussion can then compare what the real inventory shows with the five situations the fictional Bramthorne crew works through.