Worksheet Grade 11 English Language Arts
The Sandhill Aquifer Contamination Case: A Source-Synthesis Worksheet
A grade 11 worksheet where students synthesize a geologist's report, a resident's letter, and an agency notice to answer one research question about a fictional aquifer.
Objectives
- Students will summarize the distinct kind of evidence each of three source types contributes to a shared question.
- Students will integrate a direct quotation from a source into an original sentence using a signal phrase.
- Students will write a synthesis paragraph that cites specific evidence from three different sources.
Vocabulary
- Aquifer
- An aquifer is an underground layer of rock, sand, or gravel that holds water in the tiny spaces between its grains. Wells reach down into aquifers to bring water up to the surface.
- Nitrate
- Nitrate is a form of nitrogen that plants use as food. It gets into water from fertilizer, animal waste, and septic systems, and too much of it is unhealthy for both people and streams.
Also: synthesis, paraphrase, signal phrase
Teacher overview
Pratt County and the Sandhill Aquifer beneath it are fictional, invented for this worksheet to give students a groundwater-contamination question that arrives the way real research questions usually do: in pieces, from sources that do not speak in the same voice. A geologist writes technically, a well owner writes personally, and a county agency writes procedurally. A common misconception is that "using more sources" simply means listing what each one says one after another; this worksheet is built to correct that by requiring students to combine details from all three sources into single sentences and a single synthesis paragraph, rather than summarizing each source in its own separate paragraph.
Student Worksheet
Read the three fictional source excerpts below, then answer the questions that follow.
Source A: excerpt from a state geologist's report on the Sandhill Aquifer (fictional, written for this worksheet)
The Sandhill Aquifer sits within a layer of sand and gravel roughly forty feet below the surface, a porous layer that allows water, and whatever is dissolved in it, to move relatively quickly underground. Recent sampling has traced a nitrate plume moving northeast from the aquifer's southern edge, an area bordered by row-crop farmland. Nitrate levels in that direction are elevated compared with historical baseline readings, consistent with fertilizer runoff infiltrating through the sandy soil above the aquifer during wet seasons.
Source B: excerpt from a letter written by a Pratt County well owner (fictional, written for this worksheet)
My family has used our well for as long as I can remember, and until this spring the water always tasted the same. Sometime after the heavy spring rains, I noticed a faint chemical smell when I filled a glass, and my neighbor down the road says she noticed the same thing around the same time. I called the county health department because I did not know who else to call.
Source C: excerpt from a Pratt County environmental agency public notice (fictional, written for this worksheet)
The Pratt County Environmental Health Division advises residents whose private wells draw from the southern edge of the Sandhill Aquifer to test their well water for nitrate before using it for infants or during pregnancy. Free test kits are available at the county extension office. Residents whose results exceed the state guideline should contact the division for guidance on treatment options.
- Summarize, in one sentence, what Source A says likely caused the nitrate increase in the aquifer's southern edge.
- Describe, in your own words, why the sand-and-gravel layer beneath Pratt County allows contamination to move "relatively quickly," according to Source A.
- What change did the well owner in Source B first notice, and roughly when did the owner notice it?
- What specific action does Source C tell affected residents to take?
- Which source provides the most technical, scientific explanation of the contamination? Which provides the most personal, immediate account? Explain your reasoning.
- Find one direct quotation from Source A and correctly integrate it into a sentence of your own, using quotation marks and a signal phrase such as "According to the geologist's report, . . ."
- Do all three sources agree with each other about the cause and location of the contamination, or does any one source raise a detail the others do not mention? Explain.
- Write a synthesis paragraph of four to six sentences that combines specific evidence from all three sources to answer this question: should Pratt County prioritize free nitrate testing for private wells near the aquifer's southern edge?
- Identify one piece of information you would still want before fully answering the question in item 8. What additional source might provide it?
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: Fertilizer runoff from nearby row-crop farmland likely infiltrated through the sandy soil during wet seasons and moved into the aquifer's southern edge, based on the report's comparison to historical baseline nitrate readings.
- Answer: A porous sand-and-gravel layer has larger, more connected gaps than denser soil types, so water and dissolved substances can pass through it and travel underground more easily and quickly than they would through a tightly packed layer.
- Answer: The owner first noticed a faint chemical smell in her water sometime after the heavy spring rains.
- Answer: Residents on the aquifer's southern edge are told to test their well water for nitrate before using it for infants or during pregnancy, using free test kits available at the county extension office.
- Answer: Source A is the most technical and scientific, describing soil layers and a traced nitrate plume. Source B is the most personal and immediate, describing one family's direct experience noticing a change in taste and smell.
- Answer: Answers will vary in wording; the sentence must include a properly quoted phrase from Source A (such as "a nitrate plume moving northeast from the aquifer's southern edge") introduced with a signal phrase naming the source.
- Answer: The sources do not conflict, yet they cover different ground: only Source A names a cause, Sources A and C place the problem at the southern edge, and Source B places the change after spring rains without giving a location. Source B adds a detail the others do not, that a neighbor independently noticed the same smell around the same time, which suggests the problem affects more than one household. Strong answers also note a tension: nitrate has no taste or smell, so the chemical smell in Source B cannot by itself show nitrate and may point to a second problem, which is itself a reason to test.
- Answer: Answers will vary; a strong paragraph cites the geologist's traced nitrate plume and its likely agricultural source (Source A), the well owner's firsthand concern after the spring rains (Source B), noting that nitrate cannot be smelled or tasted, so only testing can confirm it, and the county's advisory and free testing offer for the affected area (Source C), concluding that the combined evidence supports prioritizing testing in that specific area.
- Answer: Answers will vary; accept any reasonable gap, such as actual nitrate test results from multiple wells in the area, which might come from a lab report or a follow-up county testing summary rather than any of the three sources given.
Differentiation
Support
Provide a three-column chart labeled Source A / Source B / Source C for students to jot one fact from each source as they read, before attempting items 5 through 8, and allow item 8's synthesis paragraph to be built from sentence starters naming each source in turn.
Extension
Ask students to draft a fourth, fictional source, such as a short excerpt from a county commissioner's statement, that would add a new and different kind of evidence to the case, and explain in one sentence how it would change or strengthen the synthesis paragraph in item 8.
ELL supports
Pre-teach "aquifer," "nitrate," and "synthesis" with simple visuals (a cross-section of soil layers for aquifer, a fertilizer bag for nitrate) before reading. Allow items 1 through 4 to be answered with short phrases rather than full sentences, and permit item 8 to be drafted first as a three-part list before being combined into a paragraph.