Water for Schools
Menu

Project Grade 6 English Language Arts

Cranbourne Water Report Family Glossary: A Grade 6 Project

Students turn the technical vocabulary of a fictional utility's annual water quality report into a twelve-term plain-language glossary booklet written for families.

Objectives

  1. Students will define technical water terms in plain language of twenty-five words or fewer.
  2. Students will explain why each defined term matters to a household reading a water report.
  3. Students will test their writing against a reader younger than themselves and revise it.

Vocabulary

Contaminant
A contaminant is anything in water that should not be there, whether it is a germ, a chemical, or too much of a natural mineral, that could make the water unsafe or unpleasant to use. Treatment plants are built specifically to find and remove contaminants before water reaches the tap.
Turbidity
Turbidity is a measure of how cloudy or murky water looks because of tiny particles floating in it. Clear water has low turbidity, and muddy water has high turbidity.
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: glossary, plain language, sample

Teacher overview

Every household on a public water system receives an annual water quality report, and its wording is set largely by what federal and state rules require the utility to state. The driving question for this project is what those words would have to say to be useful to the family opening the envelope. Over four sessions, students choose twelve terms from a supplied report excerpt and write a plain-language glossary booklet for the fictional Cranbourne Water District to mail as an insert. The teaching note worth making early is that students often define a hard word by reaching for a harder one: "turbidity means the nephelometric measure of suspended solids" is a common first draft, and the twenty-five-word ceiling in this brief exists to block that move.

Cranbourne Water Report Family Glossary: A Grade 6 Project — Grade 6 English Language Arts
Name: ____________________________ Date: ______________

Project Brief

The client. Cranbourne Water District is a fictional utility. It serves about seven thousand homes. Every summer it mails a water quality report to each one. Last year many customers made the same complaint. They said the report was impossible to read.

Your job. Build a glossary of twelve terms. The district will mail it with next summer's report. Your reader is an adult in a Cranbourne home. The booklet should also make sense to a fourth grader.

What each glossary entry contains.

  1. The term, spelled the way the report spells it.
  2. A definition of twenty-five words or fewer. It may not use the term inside itself.
  3. One sentence saying why the term matters to a family here.
  4. The sentence from the report where the term appears.

Your constraints.

  • Choose exactly twelve terms from the bank below.
  • Keep every definition to twenty-five words or fewer.
  • Take every number from the report or the fact card. Add none of your own.
  • Put a comparison your reader already knows into two of the entries.
  • Test the booklet. A fourth grader should be able to restate eight of your twelve definitions after one reading.
  • Turn in the booklet, a one-page cover note, and a source list.

Term bank (choose twelve). Source water, groundwater, surface water, contaminant, sample, detect. Action level, maximum contaminant level, parts per billion, turbidity. Disinfection, chlorine residual, distribution system, service line. Secondary standard, pH, monitoring, violation.

Report excerpt (fictional, from the Cranbourne annual report).

  • "Our source water comes from the Elder Fork well field and the Hallow Reservoir."
  • "The district collected 312 samples for coliform bacteria this year. No sample exceeded a maximum contaminant level."
  • "Turbidity in finished water is reported in NTU. Our highest single reading was 0.18 NTU."
  • "Chlorine residual is measured each week at forty points in the distribution system."
  • "Lead is not present in the water leaving our plant. Lead can enter water from a home's service line or from household pipes."
  • "No violation of a primary drinking water standard occurred this year."

Fact card (use these numbers exactly as written, or leave them out).

  • Federal rules set a turbidity limit for plants like this one. Finished water must stay at or below 0.3 NTU in 95 percent of monthly samples. It may never go above 1 NTU. Source: EPA Surface Water Treatment Rules.
  • The most chlorine allowed to remain in water is 4.0 mg/L. Most systems hold 0.2 to 2.0 mg/L out in the pipes. Source: EPA rules on disinfectants.
  • The lead action level is 15 ppb. It drops to 10 ppb in 2027 under the Lead and Copper Rule Improvements. Source: EPA.
  • The secondary standard for pH is 6.5 to 8.5. Secondary standards cover taste and appearance, not safety. Source: EPA secondary drinking water rules.

Milestones

  1. Session 1, choose the terms. Read the report excerpt twice. Underline every word you could not explain to a fourth grader. Choose your twelve terms from the bank and write one sentence for each of three choices explaining why a family needs that word. Turn in the marked excerpt and the list of twelve.
  2. Session 2, first six entries. Draft entries for six terms, using the fact card for any number. Check each definition twice, once for the word count and once for whether the definition uses the term inside itself. Trade with a partner and mark any definition that needs a dictionary to understand. Turn in the six drafted entries with the partner's marks.
  3. Session 3, remaining entries and cover note. Draft the other six entries and add the "why it matters" sentence to all twelve. Write the one-page cover note telling a family what the booklet is and how to use it beside the report. Turn in twelve entries and the cover note.
  4. Session 4, reader test and assembly. Read your definitions aloud to a partner reading as a fourth grader and record how many they can restate. Revise every definition they could not. Assemble the booklet in an order you can defend, write the source list, and submit. Turn in the finished booklet, the test tally, and the source list.

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

Rubric
Criterion 4 Exceeds 3 Meets 2 Approaching 1 Beginning
Accuracy All twelve definitions match the excerpt and fact card, and every rule figure used is stated exactly as given All twelve definitions are accurate and no number is altered One or two definitions blur a meaning, or one number is changed or unsourced Several definitions are wrong, or numbers appear that came from neither supplied document
Plain language and limits Every definition is well under the limit, avoids circular wording, and reads naturally aloud Every definition is twenty-five words or fewer and none defines a word with itself One or two entries exceed the limit or lean on a second hard word Many entries exceed the limit, or definitions repeat the term being defined
Usefulness to a family Every "why it matters" sentence names a real household situation, and both comparisons are apt Each entry has a "why it matters" sentence and two entries include a comparison Some "why it matters" sentences restate the definition, or only one comparison appears The entries define words without telling a family why to care
Testing, sourcing, and assembly Tested, revised with the tally attached, ordered deliberately, with a complete source list and a clear cover note Tested with at least eight of twelve restated, source list complete, cover note included Tested informally, source list incomplete, or the cover note is missing a purpose No reader test, no source list, and no cover note

Differentiation

Support

Assign these students eight terms rather than twelve, and give them two completed model entries to work from, one strong and one that breaks the circular-definition rule. Provide a word-count box beside each entry so the limit is visible while drafting. Allow the "why it matters" sentence to begin from a frame such as "This matters to a family because" until the pattern is established.

Extension

Ask these students to add a short section to the booklet explaining the difference between a primary standard and a secondary standard, using the pH figure from the fact card as the example, and to write two sentences on why a report might list both kinds together. A second option is to redesign one entry as a labeled drawing and defend, in three sentences, why that term is better shown than told.

ELL supports

Provide the term bank as a picture-and-word card set, with a simple image for source water, sample, distribution system, and service line. Allow students to draft definitions in their home language first, then translate with a partner or a dictionary. Give a two-column template with "hard sentence from the report" and "same idea in easy words" so the transformation is visible rather than remembered.

Extensions

Have students find a real utility's annual water quality report online and mark three terms that their booklet already covers plus two it does not. Students then write a short paragraph proposing which two terms they would add and what a family would gain from them.