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Worksheet Grade 5 English Language Arts

Why Ferry Gap Creek Turned Cloudy: A Grade 5 Evidence Worksheet

Students read a fictional creek group's letter about muddy runoff from a cleared hillside and answer ten items that ask them to quote, define, infer, and apply.

Objectives

  1. Students will quote exact sentences from a letter to support their answers.
  2. Students will explain how bare soil on a slope makes creek water cloudy.
  3. Students will apply the idea of a silt fence to a new situation the letter does not describe.

Vocabulary

Key words: cloudy, silt fence, runoff, evidence, settle

Teacher overview

Ferry Gap is a fictional town whose creek used to run clear after storms and now runs brown. A volunteer group has written to the town council explaining what changed on the hillside above the creek and what it wants done about it. The worksheet uses that letter as a single source text, so every item can be settled by returning to the words on the page. A misconception worth watching for is the assumption that cloudy water is dirty only because something was dumped in it; the letter shows that ordinary soil, once nothing is holding it in place, is itself the pollutant.

Why Ferry Gap Creek Turned Cloudy: A Grade 5 Evidence Worksheet — Grade 5 English Language Arts
Name: ____________________________ Date: ______________

Student Worksheet

A letter to the Ferry Gap town council, from the Ferry Gap Creek Watch

Ferry Gap Creek used to run clear after a storm. This spring it turned brown. We think we know why.

Last fall a builder cleared the hillside above Oak Bend Road. The trees and the grass came out. Bare dirt was left behind. Roots used to hold that soil in place. Now rain washes the soil downhill and into our creek.

We walked the creek after three storms this spring. Each time the water stayed cloudy for two days. Cloudy water causes real trouble here. Sunlight cannot reach the plants on the creek bed. Fine grit clogs the gills of fish. Insects that fish eat lose their hiding places under the stones.

We are not asking the builder to stop the project. We are asking for a silt fence along the bottom of the bare slope. A silt fence is a strip of tough cloth staked into the ground. Water passes through the cloth slowly. Soil settles out behind it. Straw spread over the bare dirt would help as well.

The creek can run clear again. It ran clear before last fall. It just needs the soil to stay up on the hill.

Signed, the Ferry Gap Creek Watch

Answer each item using the letter.

  1. What color does the letter say the creek water turned this spring?
  2. Copy the exact sentence that tells what the builder did to the hillside last fall. Put it in quotation marks.
  3. According to the letter, what job did the roots do before the trees and grass were cleared?
  4. The letter names three problems that cloudy water causes in the creek. Name two of them.
  5. Copy the exact sentence that tells what a silt fence is made of and how it is put in place.
  6. In your own words, explain how a silt fence keeps soil out of the creek.
  7. The group also asks for straw. Where would the straw be spread?
  8. The letter says, "We are not asking the builder to stop the project." Why do you think the group made that point clearly? Use the letter to support your idea.
  9. A bare lot on a different street in Ferry Gap is flat, and no creek runs near it. Would a silt fence do as much good there? Explain your reasoning.
  10. The group believes the creek can run clear again. Explain why they believe that, using evidence from the letter.

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

Answer Key
  1. Answer: brown.
    The letter's second sentence states that the creek turned brown this spring.
  2. Answer: "Last fall a builder cleared the hillside above Oak Bend Road."
    Accept the sentence copied exactly, with quotation marks and the period inside them.
  3. Answer: the roots held the soil in place.
    The letter states this directly, then explains that rain now washes the loose soil downhill.
  4. Answer: any two of: sunlight cannot reach the creek bed plants, grit clogs fish gills, insects lose hiding places.
    All three appear in the third paragraph of the letter.
  5. Answer: "A silt fence is a strip of tough cloth staked into the ground."
    Accept the sentence copied exactly, with quotation marks.
  6. Answer: water passes through the cloth slowly, so soil settles out behind the fence.
    Credit any wording that captures both the slowing of the water and the soil dropping out before it reaches the creek.
  7. Answer: over the bare dirt on the cleared slope.
    The letter names straw as a second measure spread across the bare ground.
  8. Answer: answers will vary.
    Look for the idea that the group wants the council to see the request as small and reasonable rather than as an attempt to shut the project down, which makes the silt fence easier to agree to.
  9. Answer: no, it would help much less.
    Credit reasoning that connects the letter's cause to the new setting: the letter blames rain washing soil downhill into the creek, and a flat lot with no creek nearby has neither the slope that moves the soil nor the creek that receives it.
  10. Answer: because the creek ran clear before the hillside was cleared.
    The letter states that the water was clear after storms until last fall, which is evidence that the change came from the bare slope and can be undone by keeping the soil in place.

Differentiation

Support

Read the letter aloud once before students begin, and mark the paragraph number beside items 2 through 7 so students know where to look. Allow items 1, 3, 4, and 7 to be answered with short phrases rather than sentences.

Extension

Have students write a three-sentence reply from the builder that accepts the silt fence request and adds one measure the letter does not mention, then underline the sentence in the original letter that their reply answers most directly.

ELL supports

Preteach "cloudy," "silt fence," and "settle" with a demonstration: shake soil into a clear jar of water, then let it stand while students watch the soil drop to the bottom. Provide a labeled sketch of a staked cloth fence at the base of a slope, and allow items 6 and 9 to be answered orally before writing.

Extensions

Have students design a one-page notice for the Oak Bend Road work site that explains to passing neighbors what the silt fence is for, using at least two exact phrases from the Creek Watch letter in quotation marks.