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Debate kit Grade 8 English Language Arts

Should Dunwald Open Its Drinking Water Reservoir?

A grade 8 debate kit on whether a fictional town should allow shore fishing and electric boats on its only drinking water reservoir, with two-sided evidence and a rubric.

Objectives

  1. Students will build an argument about reservoir access using a shared evidence file.
  2. Students will distinguish sourced regulatory evidence from labeled fictional testimony.
  3. Students will deliver a rebuttal that answers the opposing team's strongest point.

Vocabulary

Watershed
A watershed is all the land where rain that falls will drain to the same stream, river, or lake. Everyone lives in a watershed, no matter how far from the water they live.
Raw water
Raw water is water taken from a river, lake, or well before it has been treated. It may look clean, but it is not ready to drink yet.
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.

Also: body contact, rebuttal

Teacher overview

This kit runs as a two-team structured debate across two class periods, one for preparation and one for the rounds. The question is contested in real communities, and the evidence file is built so that neither side can win by assertion. Treatment plants are designed on the assumption that surface water is not sterile, which is the affirmative's strongest ground, and a plant designed for one raw water quality faces higher costs and tighter margins when that quality becomes less predictable, which is the negative's. Students must also keep two kinds of evidence apart, since the file mixes sourced regulatory items with testimony written for the debate.

Should Dunwald Open Its Drinking Water Reservoir? — Grade 8 English Language Arts
Name: ____________________________ Date: ______________

Resolution & Background

Resolution: Dunwald should open Dunwald Reservoir to shore fishing and to boats with electric motors, under written rules that prohibit swimming and any other body contact with the water.

Background: Dunwald is a fictional town of about 9,000 people. Dunwald Reservoir is its only source of drinking water. The town owns most of the forested land that drains into the reservoir, which is the reservoir's watershed. Water leaves the reservoir through an intake pipe, passes through a conventional treatment plant that settles, filters, and disinfects it, and then travels to homes.

The reservoir has been closed to the public since it was built. One exception exists: a hiking trail along the ridge, which stays well above the shoreline and has been open for years. The town parks committee has now proposed opening the water itself. Their plan would allow fishing from marked shoreline sections and boats with electric motors only. Swimming, wading, gas motors, and any access within a stated distance of the intake would remain prohibited. A season permit would pay for signs and for part of an enforcement position.

The council has scheduled a vote and has asked for a public debate first.

Roles: Divide the class into an affirmative team and a negative team of four to six students each, plus a moderator and two timekeepers. Each team prepares a two-minute opening, two cross-examination questions, a two-minute rebuttal, and a one-minute closing. Every speaker must name the evidence item they are using and must say whether it is sourced or fictional. Students who are not on a team serve as judges and score with the rubric.

Evidence File

Items marked sourced come from published material. Items marked fictional were written for this debate and must be introduced that way in any speech.

Case for opening the reservoir:

  1. The treatment plant is already built for water that is not clean when it arrives. Federal surface water rules require the town to filter and disinfect every drop before it reaches a tap, and they set the finished-water standard the plant must meet, which is turbidity at or below 0.3 NTU in 95% of monthly samples and never above 1 NTU. Rain, wildlife, and runoff already load the reservoir every week. (Sourced: EPA Surface Water Treatment Rules.)
  2. Water leaving the plant carries a disinfectant residual, and systems typically hold that residual between 0.2 and 2.0 mg/L in the distribution pipes. The town is not relying on the reservoir being clean; it is relying on treatment that runs continuously. (Sourced: EPA Stage 1 Disinfectants and Disinfection Byproducts Rule.)
  3. People are already in the watershed. A fictional parks committee report prepared for this debate states that the ridge trail has been open since the reservoir was built, and that no water quality violation in the town's records has ever been traced to a trail user. (Illustrative material created for this debate.)
  4. The rules can be matched to the risk. Prohibiting swimming and gas motors removes the two uses most likely to add contamination, and a marked buffer around the intake keeps activity away from the one point where raw water leaves the reservoir. (Reasoning offered for this debate.)
  5. A closed reservoir builds no constituency. A fictional Dunwald Lake Association member argues in testimony written for this debate that residents vote on the water department's budget every spring, and that people are more willing to pay to protect a place they are allowed to visit. (Illustrative testimony created for this debate.)

Case against opening the reservoir:

  1. Every added use puts something new in the water. Fishing brings bait, tackle, and discarded line. Boats bring batteries and the occasional spill. Picnicking on a shoreline attracts geese and gulls, whose waste enters the water directly. None of these are catastrophic, and all of them raise the load the plant must handle. (Reasoning offered for this debate.)
  2. The plant's margin is measured monthly and is not generous. Meeting a finished-water standard of 0.3 NTU in 95% of monthly samples, with no sample above 1 NTU, is easier when the raw water changes slowly and predictably. A source that swings with weekend crowds is harder and more expensive to treat. (Sourced: EPA Surface Water Treatment Rules.)
  3. A disinfectant residual is a safety margin, not permission to raise the incoming load. Systems typically hold 0.2 to 2.0 mg/L in the pipes, and operators keep that margin for the failures they cannot foresee, such as a main break. (Sourced: EPA Stage 1 Disinfectants and Disinfection Byproducts Rule.)
  4. Rules only work if someone enforces them. A fictional plant supervisor argues in testimony written for this debate that a season permit would fund a part-time position, and that one part-time employee cannot watch several miles of shoreline on a July weekend. (Illustrative testimony created for this debate.)
  5. Reversing the decision later would be difficult. Once a town has allowed fishing for a few seasons, closing the reservoir again means taking something away from residents who have come to expect it, which councils rarely do. (Reasoning offered 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 Makes claims with no items from the file Names one item without explaining what it shows Uses at least two items and explains how each supports the team's position Uses several items accurately, explains how they fit together, and anticipates how the other team will read them
Handling of sources Treats fictional testimony as documented fact Names sources unevenly or only when prompted Identifies each item as sourced or fictional as it is used Identifies sources consistently and explains why a sourced item carries more weight than illustrative testimony
Rebuttal quality Does not answer the other team Responds to a point without evidence Answers a specific opposing point using an item from the file Answers the opposing team's strongest point and explains why the team's own evidence outweighs it
Delivery and organization Hard to follow; no clear structure Structure is present but transitions are unclear Follows a claim, evidence, conclusion structure and stays within time Clearly structured, well paced, responsive to the round, and finishes on time

Differentiation

Support

Give these students a one-page card carrying the two strongest items from their side, each rewritten in two sentences, along with rebuttal frames such as "The other team says ___, but item ___ shows ___." Allow rebuttals to be read from notes and reduce speaking times by thirty seconds.

Extension

Ask students to prepare a third position for the fictional council, such as opening only the half of the shoreline farthest from the intake or opening for one trial season with monitoring, and to defend it against the strongest item on each side of the file.

ELL supports

Pre-teach "watershed," "raw water," "turbidity," and "residual" with a labeled cross-section drawing of the fictional reservoir showing the shoreline, the intake, and the plant. Provide the evidence file with the key sentence in each item highlighted, and allow a written closing statement in place of a spoken one.

Extensions

After the debate, students write a short letter to the fictional council stating the position they personally hold, which may differ from the side they argued, and naming the one item from the file that moved them and the one item they now consider weakest.