Explaining the Fenniscombe Aeration Basin to Ratepayers

Driving question. How would you explain to a paying customer that the main cleaning step in the town's wastewater plant is done by living bacteria?

Your client. The Fenniscombe Water Reclamation Facility is a fictional plant serving a town of about 18,000 people. Its communications office publishes a newsletter four times a year and mails it with the water bill. The office has asked your class for a feature article about the aeration basin, because customers keep asking why the plant runs blowers around the clock and what all that bubbling is for.

What you turn in. One newsletter feature article package with four parts, handed in together with your source log.

• A feature article of 900 to 1,200 words explaining how wastewater moves through the plant and what the bacteria in the aeration basin actually do.
• A sidebar of 120 to 180 words answering one question a customer is likely to ask, such as why the plant smells the way it does or why the blowers never shut off.
• A labeled process figure you draw yourself, showing the order of the steps you describe in the article.
• A glossary of exactly six technical terms, each defined in one sentence a sixth grader could read.

Constraints you must meet.

• At least four sources, logged with the title, the publisher, the date, and what each one gave you.
• Every technical claim in the article traced to one of those sources in your log.
• Six terms defined in context inside the article as well as in the glossary. A term that appears only in the glossary does not count.
• No more than one sentence of direct quotation per source. Everything else is in your own words.
• One paragraph that answers an objection a customer might raise, such as cost, odor, or noise.
• The article must state at least one requirement the plant has to meet. Federal rules for secondary treatment, for example, require a monthly average of 30 mg/L or less for the measures of organic matter and suspended solids in the water the plant discharges.

Your audience. A Fenniscombe customer who pays a water bill, reads the newsletter at the kitchen table, and has no science training. Write for that reader, not for your teacher.

1. Session 1: research question and source log. Write one focused question of your own about the aeration basin, and start a source log with at least two entries. Each entry names the source, its publisher, its date, and one sentence about what you got from it. Turn in the question and the log.
2. Session 2: process figure and glossary draft. Draw the process figure showing the order of the plant's steps, and label the aeration basin on it. Choose your six glossary terms and draft a one-sentence definition for each. Add at least two more sources to your log, for four in all, and write two follow-up questions your reading has raised that the article will not have room to answer.
3. Session 3: outline and objection paragraph. Turn in an outline that names each paragraph's job, plus a full draft of the paragraph that answers a customer's objection. Beside each outline item, write which source in your log supports it.
4. Session 4: full draft. Turn in the complete article of 900 to 1,200 words with the sidebar attached. Every glossary term must appear and be defined in context somewhere in the article.
5. Session 5: peer review and final package. Trade drafts with a partner and mark two places where a customer would get lost and one claim that needs a source. Revise, then turn in the final package with the article, the sidebar, the figure, the glossary, and the source log.