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Lesson plan Grade 7 English Language Arts

Who Runs the Waterworks? A Short Research Lesson on Water Careers

A 55-minute grade 7 lesson where students research the range of water-sector jobs from a fact sheet, answer a guiding question, and write their own follow-up questions.

Objectives

  1. Students will answer a research question about water careers using cited evidence from a fact sheet.
  2. Students will generate three focused follow-up questions for further research.

Vocabulary

Key words: operator, license, median, research question

Teacher overview

Clean water reaches a home only because many people keep the system running, from plant operators who hold state licenses to engineers and scientists with college and graduate degrees. This lesson treats a career fact sheet as a research source. Students answer one guiding question about who runs a water system and what those jobs require, cite the fact sheet as evidence, and then write their own follow-up questions. The lesson presents every path as a real option, since the sector needs workers who enter directly after high school through licensure as well as workers who arrive with four-year and advanced degrees.

Procedure

Hook (5 min): Ask students to name every job they think it takes to get clean water to a school drinking fountain. List answers on the board. Most classes name only a few; explain that today's research will add several they did not think of.

Read the fact sheet (10 min): Distribute the handout. Students read the fact sheet once, then underline three facts they find surprising. Confirm that students can find the pay range, the number of yearly openings, and the education paths.

Model research notes (10 min): Show how to answer a research question by pulling evidence from a source rather than from memory. On the board, write the guiding question and model one sentence of answer that quotes or paraphrases a specific figure from the fact sheet, with a note about where it came from.

Investigate (15 min): Students complete questions 1 through 4 on the handout, each requiring a cited detail from the fact sheet. Circulate to check that answers point back to the text rather than to guesses.

Generate follow-up questions (10 min): Students write three focused follow-up questions in question 5, each one a question the fact sheet made them curious about but did not fully answer. Model the difference between a question the sheet already answers and a genuine new question for further research.

Share and exit (5 min): Two or three students read one follow-up question aloud. Collect handouts as the exit record, and scan question 5 to confirm each student wrote researchable questions rather than yes-or-no ones.

Who Runs the Waterworks? A Short Research Lesson on Water Careers — Grade 7 English Language Arts
Name: ____________________________ Date: ______________

Student Handout

Water career fact sheet. A water system runs on several kinds of workers, and no single path fits everyone.

  • Treatment plant operators run the equipment that cleans drinking water and wastewater. Becoming an operator usually requires a high school diploma, on-the-job training, and a state license earned by passing an exam. Licenses come in classes, from I to IV, tied to the size of the plant and the operator's experience.
  • Operators earned a median of about 60,020 dollars per year as of May 2025. The lowest-paid tenth earned less than 39,110 dollars, and the highest-paid tenth earned over 91,060 dollars.
  • About 10,000 openings for water and wastewater operators are projected each year, on average, from 2025 to 2035, even though the total number of operator jobs is expected to shrink by 6 percent. All of these openings come from replacing workers who retire or move to other jobs, not from brand-new positions. This figure counts operators specifically.
  • The United States employed about 131,000 water and wastewater treatment plant and system operators in 2025.
  • The workforce is aging. EPA estimates that roughly one-third of water workers will be eligible to retire within the next 10 years. Young workers are also scarce. In 2016, only about 10 percent of water workers were 24 or younger, compared with 12.5 percent of all U.S. workers.
  • Other water jobs need different training. Civil and environmental engineers design treatment plants and pipe systems and usually hold a four-year degree. Hydrologists and environmental scientists study water in nature and often hold a graduate degree. Technicians and trades workers install and repair equipment, often through certificate programs or apprenticeships.

Guiding question: Who keeps a town's water system running, and what does it take to do those jobs?

  1. According to the fact sheet, what three things does a person usually need to become a licensed operator?
  2. What was the median yearly pay for operators as of May 2025, and what were the lowest and highest tenths? Cite the fact sheet.
  3. The fact sheet says about 10,000 operator openings are projected each year. Where does it say those openings come from?
  4. Name two water-sector jobs that usually require a college or graduate degree, and explain how their training differs from an operator's path.
  5. Write three focused follow-up questions the fact sheet made you want to research further. Each must be a real question the sheet did not fully answer.

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: A high school diploma, on-the-job training, and a state license earned by passing an exam. The fact sheet lists all three as the usual requirements.
  2. Answer: A median of about 60,020 dollars per year, with the lowest tenth below 39,110 dollars and the highest tenth over 91,060 dollars. Students should cite the pay bullet.
  3. Answer: All of the openings come from replacing workers who retire or move to other jobs, not from newly created positions. The fact sheet states this directly.
  4. Answer: Answers will vary but should name two of: civil engineer or environmental engineer (four-year degree), hydrologist or environmental scientist (often a graduate degree). A strong answer contrasts these with the operator's license-by-exam path.
  5. Answer: Answers will vary. Accept any three researchable questions, such as: "How long does it take to move from a Class I to a Class IV license?" or "What does an apprenticeship for a water technician include?" Reject yes-or-no questions the fact sheet already settles.

Differentiation

Support

Highlight the four fact-sheet bullets that answer questions 1 through 4 in advance, so these students spend their effort on citing evidence rather than searching. Provide a sentence frame for question 5: "The fact sheet says ___, which makes me wonder ___."

Extension

Ask students to sort the jobs on the fact sheet by the amount of schooling each usually requires, then write a short paragraph arguing which path they would want to learn more about and why, using at least two cited details.

ELL supports

Pre-teach "operator," "license," and "median" with simple definitions and an example. Allow students to answer questions 1 through 3 with short phrases that name the fact-sheet bullet they used rather than full sentences, and pair them with a partner for the follow-up questions.