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Worksheet Grade 8 English Language Arts

Drip or Flood? Dry Fork Irrigation Evidence Worksheet, Grade 8

A grade 8 ELA worksheet where students read about two irrigation methods on a fictional farm district, cite textual evidence, work out term meanings, and make inferences.

Objectives

  1. Students will cite the strongest textual evidence for a claim about irrigation methods.
  2. Students will determine the meaning of a technical term from context and apply it to a new case.

Vocabulary

Evaporation
Evaporation happens when liquid water, often warmed by the sun, turns into an invisible gas called water vapor that rises into the air. It is how water leaves oceans, lakes, and puddles.
Drip irrigation
Watering plants through tubes that release water slowly, drop by drop, right at the roots. Very little water is wasted along the way.

Also: irrigation, runoff

Teacher overview

The Dry Fork Irrigation District is a fictional farm district that must choose between two ways of watering crops. This worksheet gives students a short informational passage on flood and drip irrigation, then asks them to cite evidence, work out the meaning of technical terms, and apply the ideas to a new farm. The whole set stays anchored to the one passage so every answer can be traced back to the text.

Drip or Flood? Dry Fork Irrigation Evidence Worksheet, Grade 8 — Grade 8 English Language Arts
Name: ____________________________ Date: ______________

Student Worksheet

Read the passage, then answer the questions in complete sentences.

Watering the Dry Fork fields. The Dry Fork Irrigation District waters crops in a dry valley where rain is scarce. Farming uses a large share of the fresh water people take from rivers, lakes, and wells, roughly 70 percent of it worldwide, so how a district waters its fields matters for everyone downstream. Dry Fork is comparing two methods.

The older method is flood irrigation. Workers open a gate and let water run across a whole field. It is cheap to set up and simple to run. But a lot of the water never reaches the roots. Some soaks past the plants, and a large part is lost to evaporation, which is water turning into vapor and rising into the air before the crop can use it.

The newer method is drip irrigation. Thin tubes carry water slowly to the base of each plant, so the water goes almost straight to the roots. Because the water is not spread across bare, sunny ground, far less is lost to evaporation, and less runoff carries soil off the field. Drip systems cost more to install and can clog if the water is not filtered. A district manager wrote that drip irrigation is clearly the smarter long-term choice for a dry valley like this one.

  1. What two irrigation methods is the Dry Fork district comparing?
  2. According to the passage, about what share of the fresh water people take from rivers, lakes, and wells worldwide does farming use?
  3. Using the passage, explain what "evaporation" means in your own words.
  4. Which sentence most strongly supports the claim that drip irrigation loses less water than flood irrigation? Explain your choice.
  5. Why might a farmer still choose flood irrigation even though it loses more water?
  6. Name one advantage and one disadvantage of drip irrigation stated in the passage.
  7. A new grower wants to water a small vegetable field with as little waste as possible. Which method fits better, and which detail in the passage supports your answer?
  8. Which statement in the passage is the writer's opinion rather than a measured fact?
  9. Explain how a district using less water on its fields could help a town that draws its water from the same river downstream.
  10. State a claim about which method Dry Fork should choose, and cite one detail from the passage that supports it.

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: Flood irrigation and drip irrigation. The passage names these as the two methods Dry Fork is comparing.
  2. Answer: About 70 percent. The passage states farming uses roughly 70 percent of the fresh water people take from rivers, lakes, and wells worldwide.
  3. Answer: Evaporation is water turning into vapor and rising into the air before the crop can use it, as the passage defines it when describing flood irrigation losses.
  4. Answer: The sentence that drip tubes carry water to the base of each plant so it goes almost straight to the roots, because it directly explains why less water is lost. Accept the sentence that far less is lost to evaporation with drip.
  5. Answer: Flood irrigation is cheap to set up and simple to run, so a farmer with little money to spend or a large field might still choose it.
  6. Answer: Advantage: drip loses far less water to evaporation and runoff. Disadvantage: drip costs more to install and can clog without filtered water.
  7. Answer: Drip irrigation fits better because the passage says it delivers water almost straight to the roots with far less waste, which matches the grower's goal.
  8. Answer: The district manager's statement that drip irrigation is clearly the smarter long-term choice is an opinion, not a measured fact.
  9. Answer: If the district uses less water on its fields, more water stays in the river, so the town downstream has more water available to treat and use.
  10. Answer: Answers vary. A strong response states one clear choice, such as that Dry Fork should switch to drip, and cites a supporting detail like the reduced evaporation and runoff.

Differentiation

Support

Provide the passage with the two methods labeled in the margin (older and cheaper versus newer and more efficient) and give a word bank for items 1 through 3. Allow one-phrase answers for the literal questions.

Extension

Ask students to write a short counterargument a flood-irrigation farmer might give to the district manager's opinion, using at least one detail from the passage.

ELL supports

Pre-teach "irrigation," "evaporation," "runoff," and "drip irrigation" with simple pictures of water running across a field versus dripping at a plant's base. Allow students to underline evidence in the passage before writing their explanations.

Extensions

Have students design a simple table comparing flood and drip irrigation across three factors from the passage (cost, water lost, and upkeep), then write one sentence stating which factor should matter most to a dry valley.