Writing prompt Grade 11 Health & Consumer Science
Recycled Water for the Glenhaven Fields: A Drought Health Argument
Students weigh injury risk on hard, dry fields against exposure to recycled irrigation water, then argue to a school board using four sources and a fair counterclaim.
Objectives
- Students will explain how a person could be harmed by each risk in the scenario, including exposure to recycled irrigation water and injury on hard, dry ground, and identify who is most at risk.
- Students will write an argument with a precise claim supported by evidence integrated from at least three sources in different formats.
- Students will develop the strongest counterclaim fairly and state the strengths and limitations of both positions.
Vocabulary
- Recycled water
- Wastewater that has been cleaned and used again, often to water parks, golf courses, and crops instead of being thrown away. Purple pipes usually carry it.
- Disinfection
- Disinfection is the step that kills or disables germs in water so it is safe to drink. Water plants usually disinfect with chlorine, ultraviolet light, or ozone.
Also: exposure, dormant, abrasion, risk perception, counterclaim
Teacher overview
During a drought, a school district in the fictional city of Brantmoor must decide whether to water its high school practice fields with recycled water or let the grass go dormant and move practices. Both choices carry health risks: one involves contact with treated wastewater, and the other involves injuries and heat on hard, bare ground, along with lost practice time. Students read four short sources, weigh the two risks, and write an argument to the school board that treats the opposing side fairly. Teaching note: the misconception this prompt is built around is that a risk which sounds alarming, such as water that began as sewage, must be larger than a familiar risk, such as a sprained ankle. Students should come away able to explain how each harm would actually happen and how likely the evidence suggests it is, which is the core of health risk reasoning. Expect some students to dismiss the parents' concerns outright, and point them to the rubric's requirement that the counterclaim be presented with its strongest evidence.
Prompt
Read the four sources, then write your argument. Every place, person, and number in these sources is fictional.
Source 1: Drought notice from the Brantmoor Water Department
In our scenario, the city of Brantmoor declared a Stage 3 drought in May. Under Stage 3, schools, parks, and businesses may not water grass with drinking water. Recycled water is exempt from this ban. A purple recycled-water line already runs along Isling Park, next to Glenhaven High School, and the district could connect the school's two practice fields to it before the fall season begins. If the fields are not watered, the grass will go dormant and the soil will dry out until the drought ends.
Source 2: Fact sheet from the Brantmoor Water Reclamation Plant
Our recycled water is wastewater that has gone through three stages of treatment. Settling and biological treatment remove most of the solids and dissolved waste. Filtration removes fine particles. Disinfection kills or inactivates the germs that remain. In our scenario, the state allows water treated to this level to irrigate parks, schoolyards, and playing fields if the site follows four rules: purple pipes and sprinkler heads, no connection between recycled and drinking water lines, warning signs at every entrance, and watering only at night so the grass is dry before people use it. This water is not approved for drinking.
Germs in water make people sick when enough of them get inside the body, most often by swallowing and sometimes through a cut. Disinfection lowers the number of germs. Night watering lets the grass dry, and germs on dry, sunlit grass die off over time. Washing hands before eating and covering cuts lower the risk further.
| Plant record, last year | Result |
|---|---|
| Daily disinfection samples taken | 365 |
| Samples that met the permit limits | 365 |
| Days a filter alarm stopped deliveries automatically | 2 |
| Days water that failed treatment reached customers | 0 |
Source 3: Memo from Dana Okafor, Glenhaven athletic trainer
Last fall, before the drought rules, a broken valve left our main practice field without water for most of the season. The ground hardened and cracked, and the grass thinned to bare patches. Here is what I recorded at practice on that field.
| Practice injuries on the main field | Fall two years ago (field watered) | Last fall (field unwatered) |
|---|---|---|
| Ankle sprains | 4 | 11 |
| Abrasions (turf burns and scrapes) | 7 | 19 |
Other things changed too. Our roster grew, so I cannot say the field caused every injury. Still, hard ground does not give when a foot lands wrong, and bare, dry soil gets much hotter in afternoon sun than watered grass does. If we lose the fields, our only option is to bus teams to the turf field at Dromore Middle School. That trip takes 30 minutes each way, and the field is free only after 5:30 p.m. Practices would be shorter, and in late fall students would get home after dark.
Source 4: Letter from the Glenhaven Parents' Health Group
We support saving water, but we do not support this plan. Recycled water starts as sewage. Players slide, dive, and fall on this grass, and many of them have cuts and scrapes. Younger brothers and sisters play on the sidelines and put their hands in their mouths. We want to know who checks that the sprinklers run only at night, and what happens if one turns on during practice. We would rather see the fields go dormant for one season and practices moved or shortened. Several families have told us they will keep their children out of fall sports if recycled water is used, and no family was asked before this plan was proposed.
Your task
Write an argument addressed to the Brantmoor School Board on this question: Should Glenhaven High School water its practice fields with recycled water during the drought, or let the fields go dormant and move practices until the drought ends? You may argue for either option or for a changed version of one, as long as your claim is precise.
Your essay must:
- state a precise claim in the introduction;
- support that claim with at least three pieces of evidence from at least three of the sources, including at least one number;
- explain the health reasoning behind each risk you discuss, including how it could actually harm a student and who is most at risk;
- present the strongest counterclaim fairly, with its own evidence, and point out the strengths and limitations of both positions;
- end with a conclusion that follows from your argument and names the first thing the board should do.
Write five to seven paragraphs.
Planning Organizer
Complete every row before you draft. Each row matches a part of the rubric.
| Part of the argument | My notes |
|---|---|
| Precise claim: which option, and any conditions I attach to it | |
| Health risk on my side: how it could harm a student, and who is most at risk | |
| Health risk on the other side: how it could harm a student, and who is most at risk | |
| Evidence 1: source number, what it says, and how it supports my claim | |
| Evidence 2: source number, what it says, and how it supports my claim | |
| Evidence 3, with a number: source number, the figure, and what it shows | |
| Strongest counterclaim and the best evidence for it | |
| A real strength of the other position | |
| A limitation of my own position or evidence | |
| My response: what I concede, and why my claim still holds | |
| Conclusion: the first thing the board should do |
From Water for Schools (waterforschools.org). This material is in the public domain (CC0) and may be copied, edited, and shared freely.
Exemplar & Rubric
Exemplar response
The Brantmoor School Board should connect the Glenhaven practice fields to the recycled-water line this fall, but only under a written protocol that the district checks every week and shares with families. Both choices in front of the board carry health risks. The evidence shows that the risk from recycled water can be measured and controlled, while the risk from hard, bare fields and lost practice time is already showing up in the injury record.
The strongest evidence for watering the fields comes from the athletic trainer's memo. When a broken valve left the main field unwatered last fall, Ms. Okafor recorded 11 ankle sprains and 19 abrasions, compared with 4 sprains and 7 abrasions the year the field was watered. She is careful to point out that the roster grew, so the field did not cause every injury. Even so, the increase is large, and the explanation she gives is sound. Hard ground does not absorb force when a foot lands wrong, and cracks and bare patches catch cleats and turn ankles. Dry soil also heats up in the afternoon sun, which adds to the heat stress that fall practices already carry. The students most at risk are the ones who practice most often and hardest, which is nearly every athlete on the roster.
The alternative in the parents' letter also carries costs. Letting the fields go dormant would send teams to Dromore Middle School, a 30-minute bus ride each way to a field that is free only after 5:30 p.m. That means shorter practices, less physical activity for students who depend on sports for most of their exercise, and late trips home after dark. Choosing dormancy would therefore replace the risks of recycled water with a different set of risks, which the board should weigh just as carefully.
The risk from recycled water, by contrast, depends on a chain of events that the protocol can break. Germs make people sick when enough of them get inside the body, usually by swallowing and sometimes through a cut. The plant's record shows that all 365 daily disinfection samples met the permit limits last year, and on the 2 days a filter failed, an alarm stopped deliveries before any poorly treated water left the plant. Watering only at night lets the grass dry, and germs on dry, sunlit grass die off over time. By the time players arrive, the water has been treated, the grass has dried, and very little is left to swallow or to reach a scrape.
The parents' group raises the strongest objection, and parts of it deserve a direct answer. Younger children on the sidelines do put their hands in their mouths, and players with open scrapes are a real route for germs. The plant's record also has a limit: it shows what leaves the plant, not what happens on the field if a timer fails and a sprinkler runs during practice. The parents are right that the plan depends on people following it, and right that families should have been asked first. Their proposal, though, has a limitation of its own. It gives more weight to the unfamiliar risk of recycled water than to the familiar risk of injury, even though the injury table suggests that injuries on a dry field are already affecting students.
For that reason, the board should accept the parents' concerns as conditions rather than as a veto. The protocol should lock the sprinkler timer to overnight hours and post a watering log online. It should require coaches to cover every open wound before practice, and it should place hand-washing stations beside the fields so players and families wash before eating. Signs should also ask that small children stay in the bleachers rather than on the grass. These steps target the exact routes the parents named.
The first thing the board should do is hold a meeting with the parents' group, the athletic trainer, and staff from the reclamation plant before the line is connected. If the district answers the parents' questions in public and writes their conditions into the protocol, Glenhaven can keep its fields safe to play on through the drought without asking families to trust a plan they have never seen.
Rubric
| Criterion | Emerging | Developing | Proficient | Advanced |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claim | The position is unclear or changes during the essay. | A position is stated but is general, such as "use recycled water," with no conditions or scope. | A precise claim names the option and any conditions and holds throughout the essay. | A precise claim previews the line of reasoning and the conditions that the conclusion later turns into actions. |
| Evidence and source integration | Uses one source or none, or misstates what a source says. | Uses evidence from two sources, or quotes numbers without explaining what they show. | Integrates evidence from at least three sources, including at least one number, and explains how each piece supports the claim. | Integrates at least three sources and shows how two of them connect or qualify each other, such as the plant's sampling table read against the parents' question about sprinklers running during practice. |
| Health reasoning | Names risks without explaining how harm would happen. | Explains one risk accurately but treats the other as simply present or absent. | Explains how both risks could harm a student, including the route of exposure or injury and who is most at risk. | Meets Proficient and also compares the likelihood and controllability of the two risks using the evidence. |
| Counterclaim, strengths, and limitations | No counterclaim, or the other side is presented as foolish. | A counterclaim is named but not supported with evidence, or it is answered by dismissal. | The strongest counterclaim is presented fairly with its evidence, and the essay states a strength of the other side and a limitation of its own. | Meets Proficient and also concedes a specific point and changes the claim or recommendation because of it. |
| Organization and conventions | Paragraphs are missing or out of order, and errors interfere with meaning. | Paragraphs are present, but transitions are weak and errors are frequent. | Five to seven organized paragraphs with clear transitions and few errors. | Organization builds the argument step by step, transitions show logical relationships, and conventions are clean. |
Differentiation
Support
Provide the organizer with the first two rows partly filled in as a model, and highlight in the sources the three pieces of evidence most students will need. Let these students write five paragraphs using a set order: claim, evidence for the claim, health reasoning, counterclaim and response, and conclusion.
Extension
Ask students to write the one-page field protocol that their essay recommends, stating who does each task, how often, and how the district will know if it failed. A second option is to write the parents' group's reply to the exemplar and then revise their own essay to answer it.
ELL supports
Pre-teach "recycled water," "disinfection," "dormant," "abrasion," "exposure," and "counterclaim" with a labeled diagram of the treatment steps and a photo of a purple sprinkler head. Provide sentence frames for the counterclaim paragraph: "The parents argue that ___, and their strongest evidence is ___. This point is strong because ___. However, ___." Allow students to complete the organizer in their home language before drafting in English.
Extensions
Students can find out whether a park, golf course, or school near them uses recycled water for irrigation, and what signs or rules are posted where it is used. A follow-up task asks students to write the two-paragraph notice the district would send home to families explaining the decision, the protocol, and who to contact with a concern.