Worksheet Grade 4 English Language Arts
Litter and Sparrow Creek: A Grade 4 Cause-and-Effect Worksheet
A grade 4 nonfiction worksheet tracing how litter on a street reaches a fictional creek through storm drains, mixing literal, inferential, and vocabulary questions.
Objectives
- Students will trace the cause-and-effect chain from litter on a street to pollution in a creek.
- Students will use context clues to define the words pollutant and ecosystem as used in the passage.
Vocabulary
- Storm drain
- A storm drain is the grate at the edge of a street that swallows rainwater and sends it through pipes to the nearest creek or river. That water is usually not treated, so only rain belongs down the drain.
Also: litter, pollutant, ecosystem, untreated
Teacher overview
In the fictional town of Ridge Hollow, a storm drain on Cedar Avenue empties directly into Sparrow Creek, a small stream where students in this scenario often see minnows and frogs. This worksheet uses that setting to teach a cause-and-effect chain that applies to real storm drains almost everywhere: unlike water that goes down a sink or toilet, water that goes down a storm drain usually reaches a nearby creek or river untreated, carrying along whatever litter and chemicals were sitting on the street. Students read a short passage explaining this chain, then answer questions that mix literal recall, vocabulary in context, and inference about effects on the creek's wildlife.
Student Worksheet
Read the passage, then answer the questions below.
The storm drain on Cedar Avenue looks like a metal grate in the street. But it starts a direct path to Sparrow Creek. When rain falls, it washes things off the pavement. It can wash away candy wrappers. It can wash away motor oil dripped from parked cars. It can wash away dog waste left on the sidewalk. All of it can wash into the drain. Sink and toilet pipes connect to a treatment plant first. Storm drain pipes are different. They usually carry water straight to the nearest creek or river, with no cleaning in between. Anything that becomes a pollutant travels that same path. A pollutant is something that harms water or the living things in it. Sparrow Creek has an ecosystem: a community of minnows, frogs, insects, and plants that all depend on clean water. One wrapper alone might seem harmless. But litter and oil from many streets add up over a whole rainy season. Over time, that changes the water the creek's ecosystem depends on.
- What does the storm drain on Cedar Avenue connect directly to?
- How is a storm drain pipe different from a sink or toilet pipe?
- Name three things that can wash off the pavement into the drain.
- Find the word "pollutant" in the passage. Write your own definition.
- What is an ecosystem? Use the passage to explain.
- Why does one wrapper matter, even though it seems harmless alone?
- Explain the path a dropped candy wrapper takes to Sparrow Creek.
- Why do you think storm drains are not connected to a treatment plant?
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: Sparrow Creek. The passage states that the storm drain on Cedar Avenue "starts a direct path to Sparrow Creek."
- Answer: A storm drain pipe usually carries water straight to a creek or river without cleaning, while sink and toilet pipes are connected to a system that treats the water first.
- Answer: Any three of: dropped candy wrappers, motor oil dripped from parked cars, dog waste left on the sidewalk.
- Answer: Answers will vary but should describe a pollutant as something that harms water or the living things in it, matching the passage's direct definition.
- Answer: An ecosystem is the community of living things, such as minnows, frogs, insects, and plants, that all depend on the same place, in this case Sparrow Creek, to survive.
- Answer: A single wrapper alone might not cause much harm, but the passage explains that litter and oil collected from many streets over a whole rainy season add up, eventually changing the water the ecosystem depends on.
- Answer: Rain washes the wrapper off the pavement into the storm drain grate, and the storm drain pipe carries it, untreated, straight into Sparrow Creek.
- Answer: Answers will vary. Accept reasoning such as: storm drains mainly carry rainwater, and a heavy storm sends far more water than a treatment plant could clean at once, so the two systems were built separately for different jobs.
Differentiation
Support
Read the passage aloud once as a class, then highlight the three items in the "washes off the pavement" list together before students answer independently, and allow question 7 to be answered as a three-step drawing with labels instead of full sentences.
Extension
Ask students to propose one specific rule Ridge Hollow could adopt to reduce what enters its storm drains, and explain, using the passage's cause-and-effect chain, exactly which step in the chain their rule would interrupt.
ELL supports
Pre-teach "litter," "storm drain," and "pollutant" with simple sketches before reading, and provide a three-box flow chart (Street → Storm Drain → Creek) for students to fill in as a scaffold before attempting question 7 in full sentences.