Graphic organizer Grade 11 Health & Consumer Science
Tap Water vs. Bottled Water: A Consumer Compare-and-Contrast
A grade 11 compare-and-contrast organizer where students weigh tap and bottled water across cost, regulation, quality, and environmental impact, with a filled exemplar.
Objectives
- Students will compare tap and bottled water across five consumer dimensions.
- Students will organize evidence into a compare-and-contrast frame for later writing.
Vocabulary
Key words: compare and contrast, regulation, environmental impact, consumer
Teacher overview
This organizer is a two-column compare-and-contrast frame. Students fill in what is true of tap water and of bottled water across five consumer dimensions, then use the completed frame to plan an informative comparison. The structure keeps each dimension side by side, so students can weigh the two choices point by point rather than as a single overall judgment. A common misconception the organizer addresses is that bottled water is automatically cleaner or more tightly regulated than tap water; the frame gives students a place to test that idea against what is actually true of each source. Teachers can use it before an informative writing assignment, as a discussion starter, or as a review of how public drinking-water systems and packaged products are overseen under different rules.
Organizer
| Dimension | Tap water | Bottled water |
|---|---|---|
| Cost to the household per gallon | ||
| Who regulates it | ||
| How its quality is monitored and reported | ||
| Environmental impact | ||
| What a consumer should check before trusting it |
From Water for Schools (waterforschools.org). This material is in the public domain (CC0) and may be copied, edited, and shared freely.
Completed Exemplar
| Dimension | Tap water | Bottled water |
|---|---|---|
| Cost to the household per gallon | Very low per gallon, billed by the utility along with other household water use. | Much higher per gallon than tap, paid at the store for each container. |
| Who regulates it | Regulated by the EPA as a public drinking-water supply under federal drinking-water rules. | Regulated by the FDA as a packaged food product, under different rules than tap water. |
| How its quality is monitored and reported | Tested regularly by the utility, which publishes results each year in an annual water quality report. | Tested by the bottler, with results that vary by brand and are usually not published to the public. |
| Environmental impact | Uses existing pipes and little packaging, so it produces little plastic waste. | Adds single-use plastic bottles and the fuel used to transport and cool them. |
| What a consumer should check before trusting it | Read the annual water quality report and note any contaminant near a limit. | Check the label and any certification, since the brand controls what information is shared. |
Differentiation
Support
Pre-fill the "Who regulates it" row as a worked model, and give students a short word bank (utility, EPA, FDA, annual report, plastic, per gallon) to draw from as they complete the other rows.
Extension
Ask students to add a sixth row for a dimension they choose, such as taste or emergency access during a boil-water notice, fill it in for both columns, and explain why that dimension might change a household's decision.
ELL supports
Pair each dimension label with a simple icon (a coin for cost, a shield for regulation, a magnifying glass for monitoring, a leaf for environmental impact, a checklist for what to check). Allow students to complete cells with short phrases rather than full sentences, and provide a sentence frame for the summary, such as "For ___, tap water is ___ while bottled water is ___."
Extensions
After the frame is complete, ask students to write a short informative paragraph that answers a specific question: for a household on a tight budget, which source makes more sense, and why? Students should draw on at least three of the five dimensions in their answer rather than relying on taste alone. As a further step, students can locate the annual water quality report for their own local system and note one dimension of the organizer that the report helps them fill in with real detail.