Classroom activity Grade 10 Health & Consumer Science

Torres Household Water-Use Audit: A Fixture Station Rotation

A grade 10 station activity where students audit a fictional household's daily water use fixture by fixture, then compute simple conservation savings.

Grade: Grade 10
Subject: Health & Consumer Science
Material: Classroom activity
Time: 40 min
Prep: Low prep
Materials: Printed station cards, Printed Student Handout, Calculator

Standards

HSN-Q.A.1 Common Core Math

Use units as a way to understand problems and to guide the solution of multi-step problems; choose and interpret units consistently in formulas; choose and interpret the scale and the origin in graphs and data displays.

How this material aligns: Students carry gallons, gallons per day, and gallons per minute through each station's audit calculation, keeping the unit attached from indoor share to yearly leak totals.

All materials for HSN-Q.A.1 →

HSN-Q.A.2 Common Core Math

Define appropriate quantities for the purpose of descriptive modeling.

How this material aligns: In the extension students decide whether a household's water use is clearer as gallons per day or gallons per year when judging one shower's share of the total, the descriptive-modeling choice about which quantity to report that this standard names.

All materials for HSN-Q.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 2026-07-23.

Objectives

Students will calculate a household's daily and yearly water use from given figures.
Students will compare two conservation choices by the number of gallons each one saves.

Vocabulary

Water audit: A careful check of where water goes, either in a home or across a whole water system. Audits find leaks and waste so they can be fixed.
Flow rate: Flow rate measures how much water moves past a point in a certain amount of time, like gallons per minute through a garden hose. Bigger pipes and stronger pushes give bigger flow rates.

Also: indoor water use, conservation, gallons per minute

Teacher overview

This is a small-group station activity for a class working in pairs or trios. Four stations placed around the room each hold data about one part of a fictional household's water use, and students rotate through them, using the given figures to calculate daily and yearly gallons and to compare two low-flow choices. The activity turns the general idea of "using less water" into concrete numbers a consumer can actually act on, so a student can point to which use is largest and which change saves the most.

Activity Directions

Before class, print the four station cards and set one at each of four spots around the room. Print one Student Handout per student. Place a calculator at each station or have students bring their own. Every figure used belongs to the fictional Torres household and is printed on the cards.
Explain the frame: each pair acts as a home water auditor visiting the fictional Torres household. Their job is to read each station's figures, complete the matching questions on the handout, and show their work with units attached.
Divide the class into pairs or trios and assign each group a starting station so the groups are spread evenly around the room.
Give groups four to five minutes at each station. Station 1 gives the household's total and indoor daily use (300 gallons per day, about 70 percent indoors) for question 1; Station 2 gives the toilet share of indoor use (about 24 percent of 210 indoor gallons) for question 2; Station 3 gives the shower figures and a low-flow comparison (standard showerhead 2.5 gallons per minute, WaterSense showerhead 2.0 gallons per minute, one 10-minute shower) for questions 3 and 4; Station 4 gives the yearly leak figures (EPA WaterSense estimates that a faucet dripping once per second can waste more than 3,000 gallons per year, and the problem uses 3,000; all household leaks waste about 9,400 gallons per year) for question 6.
Rotate on a timer until every group has visited all four stations and answered the station questions, 1 through 4 and 6. Groups then complete synthesis question 5 back at their seats.
End the activity when all groups have finished the handout, then hold the debrief.
Debrief with the whole class. Ask which single use was the household's largest, and which of the two conservation changes saved more water for less effort. Have two groups share their reasoning using their own numbers as support.

Torres Household Water-Use Audit: A Fixture Station Rotation — Grade 10 Health & Consumer Science

Name: ____________________________ Date: ______________

Student Handout

Every figure below describes the fictional Torres household. Show your work and label every answer with its unit.

The Torres household uses 300 gallons of water per day. About 70 percent of that water is used indoors. How many gallons per day are used indoors?
Toilets account for about 24 percent of the Torres household's 210 gallons of daily indoor use. How many gallons per day go to toilets? Round to the nearest gallon.
A standard showerhead flows at 2.5 gallons per minute. One member of the household takes a 10-minute shower. How many gallons does that one shower use?
A WaterSense showerhead flows at 2.0 gallons per minute instead of 2.5. For the same 10-minute shower, how many gallons would the lower-flow model save?
In one day, the household uses about 50 gallons for toilets and 25 gallons for one 10-minute standard shower. How many gallons do those two uses total in a day?
EPA WaterSense estimates that a single faucet dripping once per second can waste more than 3,000 gallons per year; use 3,000 gallons for the faucet in this problem. All household leaks together waste about 9,400 gallons per year in a typical home. How many more gallons per year do all the leaks waste than the one dripping faucet alone?

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

Answer Key

All answers describe the fictional Torres household.

Answer: 210 gallons.
Indoor use is 70 percent of 300 gallons: 0.70 x 300 = 210 gallons per day.
Answer: about 50 gallons.
Toilets are about 24 percent of the 210 indoor gallons: 0.24 x 210 = 50.4, which rounds to about 50 gallons per day.
Answer: 25 gallons.
A 10-minute shower at 2.5 gallons per minute uses 2.5 x 10 = 25 gallons.
Answer: 5 gallons.
The lower-flow model saves 2.5 - 2.0 = 0.5 gallon per minute, and over 10 minutes that is 0.5 x 10 = 5 gallons.
Answer: 75 gallons.
Adding the two uses gives 50 + 25 = 75 gallons in one day.
Answer: 6,400 gallons.
All leaks waste about 9,400 gallons per year and the problem uses 3,000 gallons for the single faucet, so the difference is 9,400 - 3,000 = 6,400 gallons per year.

Differentiation

Support

Give these students a handout with the operation named on each line ("multiply," "subtract") and question 1 already worked as a model. Allow a calculator, and let partners split the work so one reads the figure aloud while the other records and labels the unit.

Extension

Ask students to find the household's total yearly use at 300 gallons per day, then express one 10-minute daily standard shower as a percent of that yearly total, and explain whether daily or yearly figures make the shower's share easier to judge.

ELL supports

Pre-teach "audit," "indoor," "flow rate," and "leak" with a labeled picture of a home showing a toilet, a showerhead, and a dripping faucet. Allow the debrief responses to be given as short phrases or by pointing to the station where the largest use appeared.