Water for Schools
Menu

Classroom activity Grade 3 Health & Consumer Science

The Pepperbush Water Walk: From Lake to Drinking Fountain

A grade 3 station walk where students act out how the fictional town of Pepperbush turns lake water into safe fountain water, then answer the station card questions.

Objectives

  1. Students will sequence the path drinking water takes from a lake to a fountain by walking through five stations.
  2. Students will answer questions about each stop by referring to the station card that says so.

Vocabulary

Water tower
A water tower is a big tank raised high above town that stores drinking water. Its height is what pushes water through the pipes, keeping the pressure steady even when the power goes out.

Also: treatment plant, pipes, filter, chlorine

Teacher overview

This is a whole-class station walk for a classroom, gym, or hallway loop. Five stations stand for the path drinking water travels in the fictional town of Pepperbush: the lake, the treatment plant, the water tower, the pipes, and the school drinking fountain. Students walk the path in order and perform one motion at each stop, so the order of the stations matches the order the water travels. The health content arrives at the last station, where students see that fountain water is a good choice because the town's system cleaned it before it reached the school.

Activity Directions

  1. Before class, post the five station signs in a loop, in order: Lake, Treatment Plant, Water Tower, Pipes, Drinking Fountain. Tape the matching station card under each sign.
  2. Gather the class at the Lake station. Explain that everyone is now a drop of water in the town of Pepperbush, and the class will travel the same path the town's drinking water travels.
  3. At the Lake, read the station card aloud: "Pepperbush's drinking water starts in the lake. Rain and streams fill it all year." Students make a gentle swaying motion, like water resting in a lake.
  4. Walk the class to the Treatment Plant. Read the card: "The treatment plant cleans the lake water. Screens and filters take out leaves, dirt, and tiny bits. Then the plant adds a small amount of chlorine, which kills the germs that are left, so the water is safe to drink." Students act out scrubbing and settling, then hold up clean hands.
  5. Walk to the Water Tower. Read the card: "Clean water is pumped up into the tower. Being up high helps the water flow down to every street when people need it." Students stretch as tall as they can, arms up like the tower.
  6. Walk to the Pipes. Read the card: "Underground pipes carry the water from the tower to homes, stores, and the school." Students walk in a single-file wiggle line, like water moving through a pipe.
  7. Arrive at the Drinking Fountain. Read the card: "The fountain at school pours out water that made the whole trip. It was cleaned at the plant, stored in the tower, and carried by the pipes." Students pretend to take a long, happy drink.
  8. Walk the full loop once more without stopping to read, calling out only the station names, so students feel the order as one continuous path. The activity ends when the second loop is complete.
  9. Debrief back at seats: ask which station made the water safe to drink, and why the school fountain is a good place to fill a bottle. Then hand out the debrief questions and keep the station cards posted so students can walk over and check them.
The Pepperbush Water Walk: From Lake to Drinking Fountain — Grade 3 Health & Consumer Science
Name: ____________________________ Date: ______________

Student Handout

Answer with your team. You may walk to a station and reread its card. Write which station card proves each answer.

  1. Where does Pepperbush's drinking water start?
  2. What does the treatment plant do to the lake water?
  3. Why is the clean water pumped up into the water tower?
  4. What carries the water from the tower to the school?
  5. Which station card tells what happens to the germs? Copy the sentence that says so.

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

Answer Key
  1. Answer: In the lake. The Lake card says the drinking water starts in the lake, filled by rain and streams.
  2. Answer: It cleans the water. The Treatment Plant card says screens and filters take out leaves, dirt, and tiny bits, and that chlorine kills the germs that are left.
  3. Answer: Being up high helps the water flow down to every street when people need it. This sentence is on the Water Tower card.
  4. Answer: Underground pipes. The Pipes card says pipes carry the water from the tower to homes, stores, and the school.
  5. Answer: The Treatment Plant card. The sentence is "Then the plant adds a small amount of chlorine, which kills the germs that are left, so the water is safe to drink."

Differentiation

Support

Walk the loop a third time with the class calling out one keyword per station: lake, clean, tower, pipes, drink. Let students answer the handout with station names and short phrases rather than full sentences.

Extension

Ask students to figure out what would happen to the fountain if one station disappeared. Each student picks a station, removes it from the chain, and writes two sentences about what goes wrong downstream.

ELL supports

Preview the five station names and the word "chlorine" with a picture card for each before the walk begins, and keep the motions attached to the words every time they are spoken. Allow handout answers in the home language paired with the copied English sentence for question 5.

Extensions

Invite students to find out where their own town's drinking water starts, using a family conversation or a teacher-provided fact, and compare it with Pepperbush's lake. A treatment plant operator runs the cleaning step in real towns, and the class can list what that job must check each day.