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Lesson plan Grade 6 Health & Consumer Science

Nine Dripping Faucets at Barrowmede Court Apartments

A grade 6 consumer health lesson in which students size household leaks as a percent of normal use and price a fictional apartment building's dripping faucets.

Objectives

  1. Students will express a leak total as a percent of a household's weekly water use.
  2. Students will multiply a per-thousand-gallon price to find the yearly cost of a leak.
  3. Students will name three household leaks a family can find without a plumber.

Vocabulary

Key words: leak, percent, per-thousand-gallon price, flapper

Teacher overview

A dripping faucet is easy to ignore because the loss arrives one drop at a time, yet household leaks waste an average of about 180 gallons a week, nearly 9,400 gallons a year. This lesson uses a fictional apartment building in Vraeburn to turn that slow loss into two numbers a renter can act on: what share of ordinary household use the leak represents, and what it adds to a year of water bills. The misconception worth naming before students start is the belief that a leak only matters if the water is visibly running, so the lesson has them compare the yearly total from one drip against the average household leak total and see how close the two are.

Procedure

Hook (5 min): Set a bottle with a pinhole over a measuring cup, or show a video clip of a dripping tap, and ask students to guess how much water one drip a second wastes in a year. Collect three guesses on the board, then tell them that EPA WaterSense says a faucet dripping once per second can waste more than 3,000 gallons per year, depending on the size of the drips, and leave the guesses posted for comparison at the end.

Direct instruction (12 min): Define a leak as water that leaves the system without anyone using it. Name the three household leaks renters can find on their own: a dripping faucet, a running toilet caused by a worn flapper, and a hose bib that seeps at the wall. Establish the two facts students will work with. Household leaks waste an average of about 180 gallons a week, nearly 9,400 gallons a year. The average US household uses about 300 gallons a day, roughly 70 percent of it indoors. Explain that the way to size any of these figures against another is to divide and read the result as a percent.

Worked example (8 min): Model a percent calculation the students will not be asked to repeat on the handout. A standard showerhead flows at 2.5 gallons per minute, so a 9-minute shower uses 2.5 times 9, which is 22.5 gallons. Then model the division that turns one gallon figure into a percent of another, showing the quotient written first as a decimal and then as a percent: for example, the 22.5-gallon shower as a share of the 300-gallon household day is 22.5 divided by 300, which equals 0.075, or 7.5 percent. Ask a check-for-understanding question before moving on: when we divide the smaller number by the larger one, should the answer be more or less than 100 percent? Do not continue until most hands show the correct response.

Guided practice (15 min): Distribute the handout. Students work questions 1 through 4 in pairs while you circulate. Watch for the two errors that show up most: dividing the larger figure by the smaller one, and stopping at the decimal without converting to a percent. Bring the class back together to confirm questions 1 and 3 aloud before releasing pairs to continue.

Independent work and exit ticket (10 min): Students finish questions 5 through 8 on their own. The fictional Barrowmede Court scenario in those questions is the exit ticket. Collect the handout and scan question 8 for correct decimal placement in the yearly cost.

Nine Dripping Faucets at Barrowmede Court Apartments — Grade 6 Health & Consumer Science
Name: ____________________________ Date: ______________

Student Handout

Barrowmede Court is a fictional apartment building in Vraeburn with 24 apartments. In this scenario the Vraeburn water utility charges $5.20 for every 1,000 gallons a building uses. Show your work for every question.

  1. EPA WaterSense says a faucet dripping once per second can waste more than 3,000 gallons per year. Use 3,000 gallons per year for one dripping faucet. Household leaks waste an average of about 9,400 gallons per year. What percent of that yearly leak average does the single dripping faucet account for?
  2. Household leaks waste an average of about 180 gallons per week. At that rate, how many gallons are lost in 4 weeks?
  3. The average US household uses about 300 gallons of water per day. How many gallons is that in one week of 7 days?
  4. Compare the two weekly figures. A leak loss of 180 gallons per week is what percent of a household's weekly use of 2,100 gallons?
  5. A maintenance worker checks all 24 apartments at Barrowmede Court and finds a dripping faucet in 9 of them. What percent of the apartments have a dripping faucet?
  6. Suppose each of those 9 dripping faucets wastes 3,000 gallons per year. How many gallons per year do the 9 faucets waste together?
  7. Spread that yearly total of 27,000 gallons evenly across 12 months. How many gallons per month is that?
  8. The Vraeburn utility in this scenario charges $5.20 for every 1,000 gallons. What does the building pay in one year for the 27,000 gallons the 9 faucets waste?

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: about 32 percent. 3,000 divided by 9,400 equals about 0.319, which is about 32 percent of the yearly leak average.
  2. Answer: 720 gallons. 180 gallons per week times 4 weeks equals 720 gallons.
  3. Answer: 2,100 gallons. 300 gallons per day times 7 days equals 2,100 gallons in a week.
  4. Answer: about 8.6 percent. 180 divided by 2,100 equals about 0.086, so the leak loss is about 8.6 percent of weekly household use.
  5. Answer: 37.5 percent. 9 apartments divided by 24 apartments equals 0.375, which is 37.5 percent.
  6. Answer: 27,000 gallons. 9 faucets times 3,000 gallons each equals 27,000 gallons per year.
  7. Answer: 2,250 gallons. 27,000 gallons divided by 12 months equals 2,250 gallons each month.
  8. Answer: $140.40. 27,000 gallons is 27 thousand-gallon units, and 27 times $5.20 equals $140.40 for the year.

Differentiation

Support

Give these students a handout version with each division already written as a fraction, the smaller figure over the larger one, and let them use a calculator throughout. Provide a decimal-to-percent conversion strip showing 0.375 beside 37.5 percent so the second step is a lookup rather than a rule to remember.

Extension

Ask students to find what the yearly cost in question 8 would be if the building fixed 6 of the 9 faucets in the fictional scenario, then write two sentences explaining why the savings depend on how many faucets are fixed rather than on how many apartments the building has.

ELL supports

Pre-teach "leak," "drip," "flapper," and "per thousand gallons" with photographs of a dripping tap, an open toilet tank, and a water bill with the usage line highlighted. Provide the sentence frame: "___ gallons out of ___ gallons is about ___ percent."

Extensions

Send students home with a two-question leak check: listen at the toilet for running water when nobody has flushed, and look under the kitchen sink for damp spots. Have them report back what they found and what they would tell a building manager.