Project Grade 5 Engineering & Design
Halverd Farm Co-op Well Site: A Grade 5 Design Proposal
A three-session grade 5 project where teams rule out two well sites on setback and depth rules, price the survivors, size a tank, and pitch a site.
Objectives
- Students will rule out well sites that fail a stated setback or depth criterion.
- Students will price drilling and pipe for two sites and compare the totals to a spending limit.
- Students will calculate a rectangular tank's volume and check it against a storage goal.
- Students will present a site recommendation that names the criterion which decided it.
Vocabulary
- Groundwater
- Groundwater is water that has soaked into the ground and fills the spaces between soil particles and cracks in rock underground. It is a large underground source of fresh water that wells and springs draw from.
Also: well, setback, depth to water, storage tank
Teacher overview
The driving question is where to put a shared well when every possible spot has a different drawback. Teams advise the fictional Halverd Farm Cooperative, four small farms in Riddlemoor Valley that share one failing well, and they choose among four candidate sites using the co-op's own rules about setback distance, pumping depth, and money. The project ends with a one-page proposal carrying a labeled cross-section, a cost table, a tank size calculation, and a three-minute presentation to a fictional co-op board.
The misconception to name at the start is the picture students carry of groundwater. Most fifth graders imagine an underground lake or river, so the idea that a manure yard 120 feet away could reach a well seems far-fetched to them. Groundwater actually sits in the spaces between grains of sand and gravel and in cracks in rock, and it moves slowly through those spaces, carrying whatever soaks in with it. Drawing a jar of gravel with water filling the gaps takes about two minutes, and students can return to that picture for the rest of the project. A second thing teachers should expect: teams pick the cheapest site first and then look for a reason. Insist that session 1 ends with sites ruled out on rules alone, before any price is seen, because that ordering is the point of the exercise.
Plan three sessions of about 45 minutes each.
Project Brief
Your client. The Halverd Farm Cooperative is a fictional group of four farms in Riddlemoor Valley. They share one old well, and it is running dry. They have asked your team to recommend one site for a new well. The farms, the valley, and all the prices below are made up for this project.
The driving question. Which site gives the co-op safe water, water it can actually lift, and a bill it can pay?
Criteria. The chosen site must meet all three.
- Sit at least 300 feet from the manure yard, so waste does not soak down to the well water.
- Have water no deeper than 80 feet below the surface, because the co-op's pump cannot lift water from farther down.
- Sit no more than 450 feet of pipe from the barn.
Constraints.
- The co-op can spend $8,000 in total on drilling and pipe.
- Drilling costs $40 for each foot in soft ground and $60 for each foot in rock. Drill each well down to the depth to water shown in the table.
- Pipe costs $6 for each foot.
The four sites.
| Site | Depth to water | Pipe run to the barn | Distance from the manure yard | Ground |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Top Field | 95 feet | 180 feet | 350 feet | soft |
| Creek Flat | 35 feet | 260 feet | 120 feet | soft |
| Stone Rise | 60 feet | 400 feet | 500 feet | rock |
| Willow Bank | 55 feet | 430 feet | 320 feet | soft |
The storage tank. Wherever the well goes, the co-op wants a rectangular tank holding at least 1,000 gallons. One cubic foot of water is 7.48 gallons. Your team picks the length, width, and depth in whole feet.
What you turn in. A one-page proposal with a labeled side-view drawing of the well, the pipe, and the tank; a cost table; your tank volume work; and a three-minute presentation to the co-op board.
Milestones
- Session 1: Rule sites out before you price them. Copy the three criteria and the three limits into your own words. Then go down the site table and cross out every site that fails a criterion. Write one sentence for each site you crossed out, naming the exact rule it broke. Do not look at prices during this step.
- Session 2: Price what is left, and size the tank. For each surviving site, find the drilling cost and the pipe cost, then the total. Check each total against the spending limit. Next, choose whole-foot measurements for the tank, multiply length by width by depth to get cubic feet, and multiply by 7.48 to get gallons. Keep trying sizes until your tank holds at least 1,000 gallons.
- Session 3: Draw, write, and pitch. Draw a labeled side view showing the ground surface, the depth to water, the well, the pipe run to the barn, and the tank. Build the cost table. Write one paragraph that names your site, the criterion that decided it, and the thing your choice costs the co-op. Present for three minutes to the board and take one question.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ruling sites out | No site is ruled out, or a site is ruled out for the wrong reason | A site is ruled out but the rule it broke is not named | Every failing site is crossed out and matched to the exact rule it broke | Failing sites are matched to their rules, and the team explains why the setback rule cannot be traded away for money |
| Cost work | The cost table is missing or the ground type is ignored | The table uses the wrong rate for rock or leaves out the pipe | Drilling and pipe are priced with the right rate for each site, added correctly, and checked against the limit | The costs are correct and the team shows what it would cut if the total went over the limit |
| Tank volume | No volume is shown, or length times width times depth is not used | Volume is found in cubic feet but is not turned into gallons | Volume is found in cubic feet, converted to gallons, and shown to reach the storage goal | The tank meets the goal and the team explains why it chose that shape rather than a taller or wider one |
| Labeled drawing | The drawing has no labels or shows only the surface | The drawing labels the well but not the depth to water or the pipe run | The side view labels the surface, the depth to water, the well, the pipe run, and the tank | All parts are labeled to a stated scale, and the drawing shows the manure yard at its measured distance |
| Presentation | The team cannot state which site it chose | The site is named but the deciding rule is not | The three-minute pitch names the site, the deciding criterion, and the trade-off accepted | The pitch does all of that and answers a board question using a number from the team's own table |
Differentiation
Support
Give these teams the site table with the two failing sites already shaded, so session 1 is about naming the broken rule rather than finding it. Provide a cost table with the rows and rate column filled in, leaving the multiplication and the total blank. For the tank, offer three candidate sizes and ask the team to test which ones reach the storage goal, rather than inventing sizes from nothing.
Extension
Ask these teams to add a fifth candidate site of their own, described by its distance from the barn and the manure yard, and to write the depth, pipe run, setback distance, and ground type they would need to survey. They should then argue whether it would beat their chosen site, and explain what a surveyor would have to measure before the co-op could trust their numbers.
ELL supports
Pre-teach "well," "setback," "depth to water," and "pipe run" using a side-view sketch labeled in both English and the students' home language where possible. Provide the ruling-out step as a checklist with the rule printed beside a yes and no box for each site. Offer this frame for the pitch: "We chose ___ . It meets every rule because ___ . The trade-off we accepted is ___ ."
Extensions
Many state groundwater programs publish the minimum distance a new well must keep from a septic field, a barnyard, or a fuel tank, and students can compare the rule in their own state with the 300-foot rule in this brief. If a family or neighbor has a private well, a short interview about how deep it is and how often it is tested gives students a real version of the numbers they worked with here.