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Debate kit Grade 6 English Language Arts

Should Bramwell Raise Water Rates to Fix Aging Pipes?

A grade 6 debate kit on whether a fictional town should raise water rates to fix aging pipes, with two-sided evidence on need and affordability.

Objectives

  1. Students will build a claim on the resolution and support it with reasons and named evidence.
  2. Students will listen to the other team and respond to one of its points with evidence.

Vocabulary

Water main
A big underground pipe that carries drinking water beneath the streets to a neighborhood. Smaller service lines branch off it to reach each building.

Also: rate increase, affordability, infrastructure

Teacher overview

This is a two-team debate for a class period, with a short prep session first if time allows. Students argue whether a town should raise water rates now to fix its aging pipes. The question is genuinely two-sided: old pipes are a real and costly problem, yet higher bills fall hardest on families who are already stretched. The evidence file gives both sides real facts, and a few local details are clearly labeled as invented for the debate.

Should Bramwell Raise Water Rates to Fix Aging Pipes? — Grade 6 English Language Arts
Name: ____________________________ Date: ______________

Resolution & Background

Resolution: The town of Bramwell should raise water rates now to pay for fixing its aging water pipes.

Background: Bramwell is a fictional town. Its water pipes are old, and some have started to break. Fixing pipes costs money. Towns usually pay for this work through water rates, which is the price families pay for water each month. The town council must decide whether to raise rates now or wait. Both choices have real costs.

Two teams will argue the question. The affirmative team supports the rate increase. The negative team is against it. A moderator keeps time and calls on each speaker. Each team should open with a clear claim, give its reasons with evidence, listen to the other team, and then respond to one of the other team's points.

Evidence File

Case for the rate increase:

  1. Bramwell's pipes are old and starting to break. Across the country, a water main breaks about every two minutes. Broken pipes waste clean water and can let dirt into the system. (Source: ASCE Report Card talking points.)
  2. Waiting can cost more later. A sudden break is an emergency repair. Planned repairs usually cost less than emergencies do. (Reasoning built for this debate.)
  3. Experts say the need is real and large. In 2025, engineers gave United States drinking water a grade of C-minus. EPA estimates the country needs about $625 billion for drinking-water systems over the next 20 years, and about two-thirds of that is for pipes. (Sources: ASCE 2025 Report Card; EPA needs assessment.)
  4. Suppose a fictional Bramwell town engineer reports several main breaks this year. Fixing the worst pipes now could prevent bigger, costlier breaks later. (Illustrative report created for this debate.)

Case against the rate increase:

  1. Families already pay more each year. From 2019 to 2024, water and sewer bills rose about 24 percent. That is faster than most other prices rose. (Source: industry rate surveys.)
  2. Some families cannot afford a higher bill. A common rule of thumb, made by adding two EPA guidelines (2.5 percent for drinking water and 2 percent for wastewater), treats water and sewer costs above about 4.5 percent of a household's income as a heavy burden. The EPA has no single official cutoff, and a 2024 EPA study used both 3 percent and 4.5 percent. A rate increase could push some Bramwell families past those lines. (Source: EPA Water Affordability Needs Assessment, 2024.)
  3. The town has other choices to try first. It could ask the state or federal government for grants. It could fix the most dangerous pipes first and raise rates by less. (Reasoning built for this debate.)
  4. Suppose a fictional Bramwell family already spends close to that heavy-burden line. For them, even a small increase is hard to pay. A fictional ratepayer group, the Bramwell Fair Water Club, asks the council to slow down. (Illustrative group created for this debate.)

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

Rubric
Criterion Emerging Developing Proficient Advanced
Evidence use States a position with no evidence from the file Uses one piece of evidence without explaining it Uses at least two pieces of evidence and explains how each supports the claim Uses several pieces of evidence, explains each, and connects them clearly to the resolution
Response to the other team Does not respond to the other team Mentions the other team's point but gives no reply Answers one of the other team's points using a fact from the file Answers more than one point and explains why the team's own evidence is stronger
Organization & delivery Hard to follow; no clear claim Has a claim but the order of ideas is unclear Follows a clear claim, reasons, and closing order Clear, well-ordered, and delivered so listeners can follow every point

Differentiation

Support

Give each team a single evidence card with its strongest point and a sentence frame for the response round: "The other team said ___, but the evidence shows ___." Let students read their opening claim from a written card.

Extension

Ask students to prepare for either side without knowing their assignment until debate day, so they must build both cases, then write two sentences afterward explaining which side they found harder to argue and why.

ELL supports

Pre-teach "rate increase," "water main," "affordability," and "infrastructure" with a simple diagram of a pipe breaking under a street. Allow students to deliver points from written notes and to use the sentence frames from Support during the response round.