Reading passage Grade 5 Health & Consumer Science
The Week the Fountains Were Off at Glenbarrow School
A grade 5 reading passage about a fictional school whose fountains close during a pipe repair, with questions on flushing, testing, and brown tap water.
Objectives
- Students will locate stated reasons in the passage for closing and reopening the school fountains.
- Students will infer why a crew flushes and tests a water line after a repair.
- Students will use passage details to explain why tap water can look brown after street work.
Vocabulary
Key words: main, flush, sample, rust
Teacher overview
Drinking fountains at a school are shut off whenever a crew opens the water main that serves the building, and they stay shut off until the line has been flushed and the water tested. This passage tells the story of a two-day pipe repair outside a fictional elementary school, including the flushing and testing that had to happen before the fountains reopened. It gives a teacher a short, concrete text for practicing both stated details and inference, and it explains why tap water sometimes looks brown after street work.
Passage
The school and the town in this story are fictional.
On Monday morning, the students at Glenbarrow School found a paper sign taped to every drinking fountain. Each sign carried the same message: Please do not use. Outside the building, a crew was already at work on a broken pipe under Larch Street.
Mr. Vidal, the head custodian, explained the plan at the morning meeting. The town had to shut off the water main on Larch Street for two days. A water main is the large pipe that carries water down a street beneath the pavement. While a pipe is open for repair, dirt and air can get inside it. Nobody wants that dirt ending up in a glass of water, so the school kept its fountains off until the work was finished.
The school still needed drinking water for about 300 students. Two large water coolers were set up in the gym, and teachers carried cases of bottled water to each hallway. Ms. Okonjo, the school nurse, reminded every class to fill their bottles at the coolers before recess.
On Wednesday, the crew finished installing the new piece of pipe. They did not simply turn the water back on and drive away. First they flushed the line, which means running a lot of water through the pipe on purpose. The rushing water pushes out any dirt that got in during the repair.
Next the town tested the water. A worker filled small sample bottles at the school and carried them to a laboratory. The test looked for germs that can make people sick. The school could not take the signs down until those results came back clean.
On Thursday morning the results were ready, and the news was good. Mr. Vidal walked the halls and pulled the signs off the fountains. He let each fountain run for a full minute before the first student took a drink. Water that sits still in a pipe can pick up a flat taste, and a short run clears it out.
That afternoon a fifth grader named Junie noticed that the water at her house looked a little brown. Her mother explained that the same repair had stirred up rust inside the old street pipe. They ran the cold tap for two minutes until the water turned clear again. Junie wrote the whole story in her science notebook that night.
Questions
- Why did Glenbarrow School turn off its drinking fountains?
- What did the school use for drinking water while the fountains were closed?
- What does it mean to flush a water line?
- The town tested the water before the signs came down. Why was that step important?
- Why did Mr. Vidal let each fountain run for a full minute?
- Junie's water at home looked brown. Use details from the story to explain why.
- What is one thing you would tell a younger student about the days the fountains were off?
From Water for Schools (waterforschools.org). This material is in the public domain (CC0) and may be copied, edited, and shared freely.
Answer Key
- Answer: A crew shut off the water main on Larch Street to fix a broken pipe, and dirt and air can get into an open pipe, so the school closed the fountains until the work was finished.
- Answer: Two large water coolers in the gym and cases of bottled water that teachers carried to the hallways.
- Answer: Flushing means running a lot of water through the pipe on purpose so the rushing water pushes out dirt that got in during the repair.
- Answer: The test looked for germs that can make people sick, so the results showed whether the water was safe before students drank it. The passage says the signs stayed up until the results came back clean.
- Answer: Water that sits still in a pipe can pick up a flat taste, and running the fountain for a minute clears that water out. Students may also note that the fountains had been unused for days.
- Answer: The repair stirred up rust inside the old street pipe, and that rust colored the water at her house. Running the cold tap for two minutes cleared it.
- Answer: Accept any answer supported by the passage, such as explaining that the fountains were closed for a repair, that the school provided coolers and bottled water, or that crews flush and test a line before people drink from it again.
Differentiation
Support
Read the passage aloud once while students follow along, then reread the two paragraphs about flushing and testing before students answer questions 3 and 4. Provide a four-box sequence organizer labeled Shut off, Repair, Flush, Test so the order of events is visible while students write.
Extension
Ask students to write a short note that Mr. Vidal could have sent home to families on Monday, using at least three details from the passage and explaining what families should expect. Students should include one sentence about why running the tap can help after street work.
ELL supports
Pre-teach "main," "flush," "sample," and "rust" with a labeled sketch of a street pipe running under a road to a school. Post the sentence frame "The school closed the fountains because ____," and allow students to answer questions 1 and 2 by pointing to the sentence in the passage before writing.
Extensions
Students can look for a public notice about street or water work in their own community, then compare its steps to the ones in the story. A short paragraph naming one step that matched and one that differed keeps the comparison focused on evidence.