Worksheet Grade 3 Engineering & Design

Elmbury Orchard Watering Design: A Grade 3 Worksheet

A grade 3 worksheet comparing a sprinkler and a drip line at a fictional orchard, using liters and setup minutes to pick a design and improve it.

Grade: Grade 3
Subject: Engineering & Design
Material: Worksheet
Time: 35 min
Prep: No prep
Materials: None

Standards

3-5-ETS1-1 NGSS

Define a simple design problem reflecting a need or a want that includes specified criteria for success and constraints on materials, time, or cost.

How this material aligns: Items 1 and 2 make students restate the farmer's watering goal and name one of the stated limits on money, time, and the tractor path, the criteria and constraints work this standard requires.

All materials for 3-5-ETS1-1 →

3-5-ETS1-2 NGSS

Generate and compare multiple possible solutions to a problem based on how well each is likely to meet the criteria and constraints of the problem.

How this material aligns: Items 8 and 10 weigh the sprinkler against the drip line using the liter and minute totals computed earlier, and item 9 refines the winner, the solution comparison this standard names.

All materials for 3-5-ETS1-2 →

3.MD.A.2 Common Core Math

Measure and estimate liquid volumes and masses of objects using standard units of grams (g), kilograms (kg), and liters (l). Add, subtract, multiply, or divide to solve one-step word problems involving masses or volumes that are given in the same units, e.g., by using drawings (such as a beaker with a measurement scale) to represent the problem.

How this material aligns: Items 3 and 4 subtract and multiply liters of irrigation water given in the same unit, the one-step liquid volume word problems this standard describes.

All materials for 3.MD.A.2 →

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This material is in the public domain (CC0) and may be copied, edited, and shared freely, without attribution. Updated 2026-09-23.

Objectives

Students will restate a watering goal and one limit in their own words.
Students will subtract and multiply liters to compare two watering designs.
Students will pick one design and name a change that fixes its weak point.

Vocabulary

Key words: orchard, drip line, sprinkler, goal, limit

Teacher overview

The whole worksheet sits inside one scenario, which is a fictional orchard in the town of Elmbury choosing between a sprinkler and a drip line for six young apple trees during a dry summer. Students restate the farmer's goal and limits, work out liter and minute totals from a two-week trial, then recommend one design and name a change that fixes its weakest part. Students at this grade commonly read a larger water total as better care and assume that water landing on the grass between the trees still reaches the trees somehow, so the trial figures here are arranged to put that assumption in front of them. The point worth making aloud is that the design choice turns on where the water lands, not only on how much is used.

Elmbury Orchard Watering Design: A Grade 3 Worksheet — Grade 3 Engineering & Design

Name: ____________________________ Date: ______________

Student Worksheet

The town of Elmbury has an orchard with 6 young apple trees in one row. The summer is dry. The farmer wants a better way to water the trees.

The farmer's goal is to use less water and still give every tree enough. The farmer has three limits. Only one new thing can be bought this summer. The work must be finished in one weekend. Nothing may be laid across the tractor path.

The farmer tried two designs for one week each.

Design	Liters used in the week	Where the water landed	Setup time
Sprinkler	240	On the trees and on the grass between them	10 minutes every day, for 5 days
Drip line	120	Only on the soil under each tree	30 minutes one time, then no setup

Write the farmer's goal in your own words.
Name one limit the farmer must work within.
The sprinkler used 240 liters in its week. The drip line used 120 liters in its week. How many fewer liters did the drip line use?
The drip line gives each of the 6 trees 20 liters a week. How many liters is that for all 6 trees?
The sprinkler needs 10 minutes of setup every day. It ran for 5 days. How many minutes of setup is that in all?
The drip line needed 30 minutes of setup one time and no setup after that. Over the same 5 days, how many more setup minutes did the sprinkler need than the drip line?
The sprinkler wets the grass between the trees as well as the trees. Explain why that matters when water is short.
Which design uses less water in a week?
One dripper got blocked with grit, so one tree got no water for a week. Name one change to the drip line that would stop this from happening again.
A neighbor says the sprinkler is better because it is simple. Write one sentence telling the farmer which design to pick. Use a number from this page in your sentence.

From Water for Schools (waterforschools.org). This material is in the public domain (CC0) and may be copied, edited, and shared freely.

Answer Key

Answer: Use less water and still give every tree enough. Accept any wording that keeps both halves of the goal, since a student who drops the second half will later recommend simply watering less.
Answer: Accept any one of the three stated limits, which are buying only one new thing this summer, finishing the work in one weekend, and keeping the tractor path clear.
Answer: 120 liters. The sprinkler used 240 liters and the drip line used 120 liters, so 240 − 120 = 120 fewer liters.
Answer: 120 liters. Each of the 6 trees gets 20 liters, so 6 × 20 = 120 liters for the whole row. This matches the drip line total in the table.
Answer: 50 minutes. The sprinkler takes 10 minutes a day for 5 days, so 10 × 5 = 50 minutes of setup.
Answer: 20 minutes. The sprinkler needed 50 minutes over the 5 days and the drip line needed 30 minutes in total, so 50 − 30 = 20 more minutes for the sprinkler.
Answer: Accept any answer saying the grass water is wasted on plants the farmer is not trying to grow. A strong answer connects that to the goal, noting that part of the 240 liters never reaches an apple tree while water is short.
Answer: The drip line. It used 120 liters in its week, which is half of the sprinkler's 240 liters, and all of it landed under the trees.
Answer: Accept any change that keeps grit out of the drippers or makes a blockage easy to find, such as adding a filter where the water enters the line, flushing the line each week, or checking the soil under every tree on a set day. The change must still respect the tractor path limit.
Answer: Accept any recommendation that names a number from the page. A strong sentence picks the drip line and cites the 120 liters saved or the 20 minutes of setup saved, rather than saying only that it is better.

Differentiation

Support

Give these students the table with the two liter totals circled and a number line marked in tens to 240 for items 3 and 6. Provide six small tree pictures they can place counters on for item 4, so the multiplication is built before it is written.

Extension

Ask these students to work out how many liters the drip line would save over a 4-week dry month and to say whether that changes their recommendation. Have them design a third option that combines both devices and name the limit that option would break.

ELL supports

Pre-teach orchard, sprinkler, drip line, and setup with photographs and a hand motion for water falling in a wide spray versus a single drop. Provide the frames "The farmer wants to ___" and "I would pick the ___ because ___ liters." Allow item 9 to be answered with a labeled drawing of the change.

Extensions

Give the class a plan of a school garden bed with eight plants and ask them to design a watering layout that puts water only where the plants are. Students can mark the spots on the plan and write the one limit they found hardest to work within.