Project Grade 7 Health & Consumer Science
Kessel Ridge Fountains After Summer: A Flush and Test Plan
Teams schedule a fictional school's fountain flushing for the day before classes start, choose which fixtures to sample for lead on a fixed budget, and notify families.
Objectives
- Students will build a flushing schedule that fits a stated number of fixtures into the labor hours available.
- Students will choose which fixtures to sample within a fixed budget and justify the choices.
- Students will write a one-page family notice explaining the plan and what a result above the action level would mean.
Vocabulary
- Action level
- A trigger number in lead and copper testing. If too many homes test above this level, the utility must take steps like improving treatment and telling the public.
Also: fixture, flushing, stagnant, sampling plan
Teacher overview
School buildings sit empty for weeks each summer while the water inside their pipes stands still, and lead and copper dissolve more readily out of older plumbing and fittings when the water is not moving. The first drink a student takes in September comes from exactly that water unless someone has flushed the lines first. In this four-session project, teams plan the flush and the sampling for the fictional Kessel Ridge Middle School in the town of Dunbarrow, where the crew, the clock, and the lab budget are all fixed. Requirements for school testing differ from state to state, so many districts run a program like this one on their own, which is the situation the project puts students in.
Project Brief
Driving question: after ten weeks with the building closed, how does a school make sure the first drink of the year is safe?
The scenario. Kessel Ridge Middle School has 18 drinking fountains and 6 bottle filling stations, which is 24 fixtures in all. The building closes for 10 weeks each summer. Your team is the district's water safety committee, and you plan the work for the day before students return.
Why this matters. Lead is most harmful to young children, and the sixth graders are the youngest students in this building. Water that sits for weeks in contact with older plumbing can pick up more metal than water that is moving. Flushing pushes that standing water out. Sampling tells you whether flushing was enough.
Constraints your plan must meet:
- Two custodians are available for 3 hours on the day before students return, which is 360 minutes of work in total.
- Each of the 18 fountains must be flushed for at least 2 minutes.
- Each of the 6 bottle filling stations is farther from the service line, so each one must be flushed for 5 minutes.
- Recording each fixture in the log takes 1 more minute after its flush.
- A fixture flows about 1.5 gallons per minute in our scenario, and your plan must report the total gallons used.
- The lab charges 35 dollars for each lead sample in our scenario, and your testing budget is 600 dollars.
- The district in our scenario will act on any result at or above 10 ppb, which matches the action level that takes effect in 2027 rather than the 15 ppb level in force today.
Deliverables: a one-page flush schedule, a sampling plan, a one-page family notice, and a 5-minute presentation to a panel acting as the district facilities committee.
Milestones
Session 1, inventory and totals. Produce a fixture table listing all 24 fixtures by location and type, the flush minutes assigned to each, the total flushing minutes for the building, and the total gallons that flushing will use.
Session 2, the schedule. Produce a one-page schedule that splits the work between two custodians, shows the order and start time for each fixture, and proves in writing that the total fits inside 360 minutes of available work.
Session 3, the sampling plan. Your budget does not cover all 24 fixtures, so produce a table naming which fixtures your team will sample, the cost total, and a one-sentence reason for each group of choices. State plainly which fixtures go untested and why your team accepted that risk.
Session 4, notice and presentation. Produce a one-page family notice that explains what was flushed, what was sampled, and what the school will do if a result comes back at or above the district's action level, then present the plan for 5 minutes and answer two panel questions.
From Water for Schools (waterforschools.org). This material is in the public domain (CC0) and may be copied, edited, and shared freely.
Rubric
| Criterion | Emerging | Developing | Proficient | Advanced |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Flush schedule | Fixtures are missing or the minutes are not assigned. | All fixtures appear but the total exceeds the available work time or the arithmetic is wrong. | All 24 fixtures are scheduled with correct minutes, the total fits the available time, and gallons are reported. | Also sequences the work so the fixtures used earliest on the first morning are flushed last, and explains that choice. |
| Sampling choices | No sampling plan, or the plan ignores the budget. | Chooses fixtures without reasons, or the cost total is wrong. | Chooses fixtures inside the budget, gives a reason for each group, and names what goes untested. | Also proposes how the untested fixtures would be covered next year and defends the priority order. |
| Family notice | Restates the plan without telling families anything they can use. | Explains the flushing but not what a high result would mean. | Explains flushing, sampling, and the response to a result at or above the action level in plain sentences. | Also answers the two questions families are most likely to ask, briefly and on the same page. |
| Presentation | Reads the plan aloud and cannot answer questions. | Covers part of the plan and answers one question. | Covers the schedule, the sampling plan, and the notice in 5 minutes and answers both questions with evidence. | Presents clearly, answers both questions, and names the first change the team would make with a larger budget. |
Differentiation
Support
Give these teams the fixture table already filled in with locations and flush minutes so their work begins at the totals, and provide a worked example showing one custodian's first 40 minutes. A sentence stem bank supports the family notice.
Extension
Ask teams to compare two sampling strategies: testing the same 17 fixtures every year, or rotating so that all 24 are covered over two years. Have them argue for one strategy in front of the panel using the district's action level and the ages of the students in the building.
ELL supports
Pre-teach "fixture," "flush," "stagnant," and "sample" using the floor plan and a labeled photograph of a fountain and a bottle filler. Allow the family notice to be drafted in the student's stronger language before translation, and give each presenter a role card naming the one section they will cover.
Extensions
Teams can find out whether their own state requires schools to test drinking water and compare that requirement with the plan they built. A district facilities director or a certified sampler can join the final session to describe how a first-draw sample is actually collected, since the bottle must be filled after the water has been sitting.