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Worksheet Grade 8 English Language Arts

Fenwick Bay's Water Quality Report: Grade 8 Vocabulary Worksheet

A grade 8 ELA worksheet where students read a fictional annual water-quality report, define technical terms from context, and cite evidence from its data table.

Objectives

  1. Students will determine the meaning of technical terms in a water-quality report from context.
  2. Students will cite data from a table as evidence for a claim about water quality.

Vocabulary

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.
Action level
A trigger number in lead and copper testing. If too many homes test above this level, the utility must take steps like improving treatment and telling the public.
Contaminant
A contaminant is anything in water that should not be there, whether it is a germ, a chemical, or too much of a natural mineral, that could make the water unsafe or unpleasant to use. Treatment plants are built specifically to find and remove contaminants before water reaches the tap.

Also: residual

Teacher overview

Every year, a water utility mails customers a report on what is in their drinking water. This worksheet uses a short version of that report from Fenwick Bay Water, a fictional utility, so students can practice reading a real-world document type. Students work out the meaning of technical terms from context, read a small data table, and cite rows of it as evidence. The skill is close reading of an informational text, not calculation.

Fenwick Bay's Water Quality Report: Grade 8 Vocabulary Worksheet — Grade 8 English Language Arts
Name: ____________________________ Date: ______________

Student Worksheet

Read the report and table, then answer the questions in complete sentences.

Fenwick Bay Water annual report to customers. (Fenwick Bay Water is a fictional utility, and its yearly results below are made up for this worksheet.) This report tells you what our tests found in your drinking water last year. A contaminant is any substance found in water besides water itself. Some contaminants are harmless in small amounts, so federal rules set a guide for each one. When a substance reaches its action level, the utility must take extra steps to lower it. For lead, the action level is a trigger for action, not a safe level; the federal health goal for lead is zero. This year, every result stayed within its federal guide. The table below lists four of the items we watch most closely.

Item What it means This year in Fenwick Bay Federal guide
Turbidity how cloudy the water is 0.2 NTU average; every sample at or below 0.3 NTU at or below 0.3 NTU in 95% of monthly samples; never above 1 NTU
Lead metal that can dissolve from old pipes below the action level action level 15 ppb, dropping to 10 ppb in 2027
Chlorine disinfectant left in the pipes 0.8 mg/L average keep about 0.2 to 2.0 mg/L; upper limit 4.0 mg/L
pH how acidic or basic the water is 7.6 aim for 6.5 to 8.5
  1. What was Fenwick Bay's average turbidity this year, according to the table?
  2. Using the report, explain what "turbidity" measures.
  3. Using the report, explain what an "action level" is.
  4. Which row of the table shows the water met the federal guide for cloudiness? Explain how you know.
  5. Lead was below the action level this year. Why does the report still explain that lead can dissolve from old pipes?
  6. The report calls chlorine a "residual" left in the pipes. Using context, explain what "residual" means here.
  7. The lead action level is set to drop to 10 ppb in 2027. What does that change require utilities to do?
  8. A resident sees the pH result of 7.6 and the guide of 6.5 to 8.5. Is the result within the guide? Explain.
  9. Why would a utility send a report like this to every customer each year?
  10. Cite one row of the table as evidence that Fenwick Bay's water met a federal guide this year.

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: 0.2 NTU average. The table lists this as the year's turbidity result.
  2. Answer: Turbidity measures how cloudy the water is, as the table's "what it means" column states.
  3. Answer: An action level is the point at which a substance reaches an amount that requires the utility to take extra steps to lower it, as the report explains.
  4. Answer: The turbidity row, because every sample was at or below the 0.3 NTU guide.
  5. Answer: The report explains the source of lead so customers understand where it could come from and why the utility watches it, even in a year when the result stayed low, and because no amount of lead is considered safe.
  6. Answer: A residual is the small amount of chlorine that stays in the water after treatment so it keeps protecting the water as it moves through the pipes.
  7. Answer: It requires utilities to act when lead reaches the lower level of 10 ppb instead of 15 ppb, a stricter guide that takes effect in 2027.
  8. Answer: Yes. A pH of 7.6 falls between 6.5 and 8.5, so the result is within the federal guide.
  9. Answer: A utility sends the report to keep customers informed about what is in their water and to show whether each result met its federal guide, which builds trust and meets a reporting rule.
  10. Answer: Answers vary. For example, the turbidity row (every sample at or below the 0.3 NTU guide) or the pH row (7.6 within the 6.5 to 8.5 range) each shows the water met a federal guide.

Differentiation

Support

Read the report aloud and model item 1 using the table. Provide a term-and-definition matching box for "contaminant," "turbidity," "action level," and "residual" before students write.

Extension

Ask students to write two sentences a utility could add to the report explaining, in plain language, why keeping some chlorine residual in the pipes protects customers.

ELL supports

Pre-teach "contaminant," "turbidity," "action level," and "residual" with simple definitions and an example of clear versus cloudy water. Allow students to answer the literal questions by pointing to the table cell before writing.

Extensions

Have students find one term in the report they think a younger reader would not know, then rewrite the sentence containing it so a fifth grader could understand it without losing the meaning.