Graphic organizer Grade 7 English Language Arts
Stormwater Fixes at Gorsemoor Middle School: A Trade-Off Frame
A grade 7 organizer that compares four stormwater options for a fictional school on cost, strength, and limits, then holds a recommendation and its strongest objection.
Objectives
- Students will record what each option does well and what it does not do.
- Students will recommend one option and support it with two reasons drawn from the cards.
- Students will state the strongest objection to their own recommendation and answer it.
Vocabulary
- Rain garden
- A rain garden is a shallow planted dip in the ground that catches rain running off a roof or driveway and lets it soak slowly into the soil. Its deep-rooted plants help clean the water.
- Cistern
- A large tank that stores rainwater collected from a roof so it can be used later, usually for watering plants.
- Detention basin
- A detention basin is a dug-out area that fills with stormwater during a storm and then slowly drains empty over hours or days. It holds the water back so streets and streams downstream do not flood.
Also: runoff, trade-off, permeable
Teacher overview
This is a four-row comparison table followed by a recommendation frame. Students read four option cards for handling rain that runs off a school campus, fill one row per option, and then commit to a recommendation that has to survive the strongest objection they can find against it. The structure matches the concept, since every option here is good at something and poor at something else, and a single-column pros list would hide that. The teaching note worth making first is that students often treat cost as the only trade-off, so they rank the cheapest option best and stop. The columns for what an option does not do and for upkeep exist to make the cheaper options defend themselves, since the least expensive card below treats only about a tenth of the campus and the next least expensive does little to clean the water it holds.
Organizer
Gorsemoor Middle School and the four option cards below are fictional and were written for this organizer.
The problem. Gorsemoor Middle School sits on eleven acres, and most of that surface is roof, parking, and pavement. Rain runs off it quickly, ponds at the neighbor's fence line, and carries grit and oil into the storm drain at the corner. The district has money for one project this year and has asked students to recommend which one.
Card A. Rain garden in the bus loop island. A shallow planted basin that catches runoff from the bus loop and lets it soak into the ground. Building it costs about $18,000. Keeping it costs about $900 a year for weeding and mulch. It treats the bus loop only, which is roughly one tenth of the campus surface. It fails if the crew mows it or pulls the plants as weeds.
Card B. Permeable pavement on the staff lot. Pavement with open pores that lets rain pass through into a stone bed underneath instead of running off. Building it costs about $95,000. The pores clog with grit and must be vacuumed twice a year, and the district's sweeper cannot do that work, so a contractor would be hired. It treats the whole staff lot and removes the ponding there.
Card C. Two underground cisterns for the ball field. Tanks that store roof runoff and feed the ball field sprinklers in dry weeks. Building them costs about $70,000. Upkeep is a yearly cleaning. They cut the water the school buys for irrigation each summer. Once the tanks are full they hold nothing more, so a long storm runs off as before.
Card D. Detention basin behind the gym. A dug basin that holds storm water and lets it out slowly through a small outlet pipe. Building it costs about $40,000, and upkeep is mowing. It ends the ponding at the neighbor's fence line during heavy rain. It does little to clean the water, and it takes about 20,000 square feet out of the practice field.
Frame 1: What each option does.
| Option | How it works, in one sentence | Cost to build, and cost to keep up | What it does best | What it does not do | The strongest objection to it |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A. Rain garden | |||||
| B. Permeable pavement | |||||
| C. Cisterns | |||||
| D. Detention basin |
Frame 2: My recommendation.
| Question | My answer |
|---|---|
| The option I recommend | |
| Reason 1, naming the card it comes from | |
| Reason 2, naming the card it comes from | |
| My second choice, and what would make it first | |
| The strongest objection to my recommendation | |
| My one-sentence answer to that objection | |
| What I would measure next year to know whether it worked |
From Water for Schools (waterforschools.org). This material is in the public domain (CC0) and may be copied, edited, and shared freely.
Completed Exemplar
The exemplar recommends Option B. Option A, C, or D can be defended just as well from these cards, so read student rows for how the evidence is used rather than for the choice.
Frame 1: What each option does.
| Option | How it works, in one sentence | Cost to build, and cost to keep up | What it does best | What it does not do | The strongest objection to it |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A. Rain garden | A shallow planted basin catches bus loop runoff and lets it soak into the ground. | About $18,000 to build, about $900 a year to weed and mulch. | Cleans and soaks in runoff at the lowest building cost of the four. | It treats only about a tenth of the campus surface. | A crew that mows it or pulls the plants as weeds would end its usefulness in one season. |
| B. Permeable pavement | Pavement with open pores lets rain pass through into a stone bed instead of running off. | About $95,000 to build, plus a contractor twice a year to vacuum the pores. | Removes the ponding on the staff lot and treats that whole surface. | It does nothing for the roof, the bus loop, or the fence line. | It costs the most to build and locks the district into hiring a contractor the district does not currently use. |
| C. Cisterns | Tanks store roof runoff and feed the ball field sprinklers in dry weeks. | About $70,000 to build, one cleaning a year. | Cuts the water the school buys for summer irrigation. | It holds nothing once full, so a long storm runs off as before. | The benefit shows up in dry weeks, while the problem the district asked about is heavy rain. |
| D. Detention basin | A dug basin holds storm water and lets it out slowly through a small outlet pipe. | About $40,000 to build, mowing to keep up. | Ends the ponding at the neighbor's fence line during heavy rain. | It does little to clean the water it holds. | It takes about 20,000 square feet out of the practice field, which the school uses daily. |
Frame 2: My recommendation.
| Question | My answer |
|---|---|
| The option I recommend | Gorsemoor should build the permeable pavement on the staff lot. |
| Reason 1, naming the card it comes from | Card B states that it treats the whole staff lot and removes the ponding there, so one project fixes that whole surface. |
| Reason 2, naming the card it comes from | Card B keeps the surface in use as a parking lot, while Card D says the basin takes about 20,000 square feet out of the practice field. |
| My second choice, and what would make it first | The rain garden in Card A. It would come first if the district could promise in writing that the grounds crew will not mow or weed it. |
| The strongest objection to my recommendation | Card B costs about $95,000 to build, more than twice the detention basin, and it commits the district to paying a contractor twice a year forever. |
| My one-sentence answer to that objection | I concede the cost and answer that the vacuuming is a regular twice-a-year cost the district can plan for, while the basin in Card D would cost the practice field every day of the school year. |
| What I would measure next year to know whether it worked | Whether water still stands on the staff lot after a heavy rain, and how much grit the contractor removes at each vacuuming. |
Differentiation
Support
Give these students Frame 1 with the "how it works" column already filled from the cards, so the work begins at the comparison rather than at the summary. Reduce the table to Options A and D, the two cheapest, and supply one strongest objection as a model. Provide the frames "Card ___ says ___, so this option is good at ___" and "This option does not ___."
Extension
Ask these students to write a paragraph proposing a pair of options the school could build over two years, naming which problem each one solves and why the order matters. A second option is to write the three questions they would ask the grounds crew before recommending Option A, and to say what each answer would settle.
ELL supports
Pre-teach "runoff," "ponding," "pores," "cistern," and "basin" with a labeled drawing showing rain on a parking lot, rain soaking through pavement, and a tank under the ground. Provide the option cards with the cost sentence highlighted in one color and the limit sentence in another, so the cost column and the "What it does not do" column of Frame 1 can be found by color. Allow students to fill Frame 1 with short phrases and to give their recommendation orally before writing Frame 2.
Extensions
Have students walk their own campus after a rain and mark on a sketch map where water stands and where it runs. Then have them name which of the four cards would fit that spot and write two sentences on why, which turns the organizer into a proposal a facilities office could actually read.