Project Grade 9 Health & Consumer Science
After the Wendle River Flood: A Corriebrook Return-Home Health Kit
Teams rank post-flood health hazards from five fictional notices and build a door hanger, a tap-water decision chart, and a 60-second alert for returning families.
Objectives
- Students will explain how floodwater becomes contaminated with sewage and why flooded wells and water systems under an advisory are not safe to drink from until cleared.
- Students will rank post-flood household hazards by how likely and how severe each one is and defend the ranking with evidence from the sources.
- Students will build a tap-water decision chart that gives a correct action for both a town water customer and a private well owner.
- Students will produce a door hanger and a spoken alert that meet stated limits on length, sentence difficulty, and printing budget.
Vocabulary
- Boil water advisory
- A public notice telling people to boil tap water before drinking it because germs may have entered the pipes, often after a main break or a loss of pressure.
Also: wellhead, sewage backup, carbon monoxide, contamination, risk ranking
Teacher overview
Families who return to a flooded home face several health hazards at once, from germs in floodwater and tap water to carbon monoxide, electric shock, and injuries during cleanup. In this five-session project, teams play the staff of a fictional county health department after a river flood in the town of Corriebrook. They read five short source notices, rank the hazards by how likely and how severe each one is, and build a return-home health kit: a two-sided door hanger, a decision chart that answers "Is my tap water safe to drink right now?", a 60-second phone and radio alert, and a one-page memo that defends their ranking. The final kit is presented to a panel acting as the county health department.
Teaching note: two misconceptions are common and worth naming early. The first is that water which looks clear and smells normal after a flood is safe to drink, when the germs that cause stomach illness cannot be seen, smelled, or tasted. The second is that boiling makes any water safe; boiling kills germs, yet it does nothing to fuel, oil, or chemicals that floodwater may have carried into a well. A third point needs direct instruction because carbon monoxide poisoning causes deaths after floods: a generator or grill run in a garage, even with the garage door open, can still send dangerous levels of carbon monoxide into the house, and the gas has no color or smell.
Project Brief
Driving question: What do families returning to flooded homes need to know first to protect their health, and how can the county tell them in a form they will actually read and use?
The scenario. Corriebrook is a fictional town of about 5,200 people on the Wendle River. After four days of heavy rain, the river rose over its banks and put water into about 340 homes. About 60 of those homes are north of town and use private wells. The rest of the town, including about 1,700 homes that did not flood, gets its water from the Corriebrook Water Department. The Greyholm County Health Department has asked your team to prepare a return-home health kit. Families will receive it at the checkpoint where they drive back into their neighborhood.
Your source packet. All five notices are part of the fictional scenario. Every hazard in your kit must come from at least one of them.
Source 1, Corriebrook Water Department. A boil-water advisory is in effect for all customers. Floodwater broke two water mains, and pressure in the pipes dropped, which can let dirty water get in. Bring tap water to a full rolling boil for one minute and let it cool before you drink it, make ice, brush teeth, or mix baby formula, or use bottled water. We will announce when tests show the water is safe. When the advisory ends, run each cold tap for a few minutes, throw out any ice made during the advisory, and replace any filter cartridges.
Source 2, Greyholm County Health Department, private wells. If floodwater covered your wellhead or reached the top of your well casing, do not use the well water for drinking, cooking, brushing teeth, or bathing a baby. Floodwater can carry sewage and chemicals down into the well. The well must be disinfected, and a water sample must test free of bacteria before you use it again. Free sample kits are at the checkpoint. If you do not know how high the water rose, treat your well as flooded. Boiling well water kills germs but does not remove fuel or chemicals.
Source 3, Corriebrook Wastewater Plant. Floodwater covered part of the plant for two days. During that time, sewage that could not be treated flowed into the river and the flooded streets. Treat all floodwater as if it contains sewage. Homes on low streets may also have had sewage back up through floor drains and basement toilets.
Source 4, Wendle Valley Hospital. In our scenario, the hospital treated these flood-related cases in the first ten days: 38 cuts and puncture wounds during cleanup, 21 cases of stomach illness with vomiting or diarrhea, 11 falls on wet or muddy floors, 9 rashes and skin infections, 3 cases of carbon monoxide poisoning from a generator or grill used indoors or in a garage, and 1 electric shock from a wet basement outlet. One of the carbon monoxide patients needed intensive care.
Source 5, Greyholm County cleanup sheet. Wear rubber gloves and boots when you touch floodwater or anything it soaked. Wash your hands with soap and safe water afterward. Keep children out of floodwater and wash any hard toys it touched. Throw away food that may have touched floodwater. Remove wet carpet, mattresses, and drywall that cannot be dried quickly, because mold grows on them, and keep people with asthma away from moldy rooms. Never mix bleach with ammonia or other cleaners, and follow the label on any cleaning product.
Constraints your kit must meet.
- The door hanger has two sides, each about 4 by 9 inches. It must list the five hazards your team ranked highest, in order, with one clear action for each.
- No sentence on the door hanger may be longer than 15 words, and a sixth grader should be able to read every word.
- The decision chart must answer one question: "Is my tap water safe to drink right now?" It must work for a town water customer and for a well owner, and every path must end with an action.
- The alert script is for the county phone line and local radio. It must be 150 words or fewer, and it must give the most important action first.
- In our scenario the health department has $400 for printing. A color door hanger costs 90 cents, a black-and-white door hanger costs 35 cents, and one laminated checkpoint poster costs $60, which you must buy. You need at least one door hanger for each of the 340 flooded homes. Decide whether to print in color or in black and white, decide how many extra copies to print for homes under the boil-water advisory, and show your math.
Final deliverable. Turn in the kit to the Greyholm County Health Department panel: the two-sided door hanger, the tap-water decision chart, the alert script read aloud or recorded, the printing budget, and a one-page hazard memo that explains your top five and names the source behind each one.
Milestones
Session 1, build the hazard table. Read all five sources. List at least eight separate hazards in a table with four columns: the hazard, the source number, how it harms a person (such as swallowing germs, breathing a gas, or an open wound), and who is most at risk. Output: a completed hazard table with at least eight rows.
Session 2, rank the hazards. Score each hazard from 1 to 3 for how likely it is and from 1 to 3 for how severe it is, using Source 4 and the other notices as evidence. Multiply the two scores, then decide whether to keep that order or change it. Output: a ranked list of your top five and a draft memo paragraph that explains one place where your team moved a rare but severe hazard, such as carbon monoxide, above a more common one.
Session 3, build and test the decision chart. Draw the chart so that each question has a yes or no answer and each path ends with an action. Then run these four test households through another team's chart and record the action it gives. Household 1 is a town water customer who needs to mix baby formula while the advisory is still on. Household 2 is a well owner whose wellhead was under floodwater for a day, and the water now looks clear and smells normal. Household 3 is a well owner who was away during the flood and does not know how high the water rose. Household 4 is a town water customer on the day the advisory is lifted. Output: your final chart and a list of any fixes the test showed you needed.
Session 4, draft the door hanger, the alert, and the budget. Write both sides of the door hanger and the alert script. Count the words in every door-hanger sentence and in the whole script. Work out the printing budget for your choice and one other option. Output: a draft door hanger, a script of 150 words or fewer, and a budget table with both options.
Session 5, reader test and presentation. Give your door hanger to a student from another team for 30 seconds, take it back, and ask what the three most important actions were. Revise anything the reader missed. Then present the full kit to the panel in four minutes or less and answer its questions. Output: the final kit, the reader-test notes, and a two-sentence revision note.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Health accuracy | The kit includes an unsafe or wrong action, such as calling boiled well water safe after a flood or running a generator in an open garage. | Actions are safe but general, and the kit does not say why floodwater, flooded wells, or advisory tap water are unsafe. | Every action is correct and the kit explains the reason for the main ones, including that boiling kills germs but does not remove chemicals. | The kit also names the people most at risk for at least two hazards, such as infants for formula water or people with asthma for mold, and adjusts the advice for them. |
| Hazard ranking and sources | Hazards are listed without a ranking or without source numbers. | Hazards are ranked, but the ranking uses only how common each one is. | The top five are ranked using both likelihood and severity, and the memo cites a source for each one. | The memo also defends at least one hard call, such as placing carbon monoxide above cuts, with evidence from Source 4 and a clear health reason. |
| Tap-water decision chart | The chart covers only town water or only wells, or some paths end without an action. | The chart covers both water sources but gives a wrong action for one of the four test households. | The chart gives the correct action for all four test households. | The chart is correct for all four and also handles a case the brief did not name, such as a town customer whose basement flooded with sewage. |
| Audience and constraints | The door hanger, script, or budget breaks a stated limit. | Limits are met, but the most important action is buried or the reader test shows the main actions were missed. | All limits are met, the script leads with the most important action, and the budget stays at or under $400 with correct math. | All limits are met, and the team explains a tradeoff it made, such as color for attention compared with black and white to reach more households. |
Expected results for the Session 3 test households: Household 1 boils tap water and lets it cool, or uses bottled water, for the formula (Source 1). Household 2 does not use the well for drinking, cooking, brushing teeth, or bathing a baby until it is disinfected and a sample tests free of bacteria; clear appearance and normal smell do not change this (Source 2). Household 3 treats the well as flooded and follows the same steps as Household 2 (Source 2). Household 4 runs each cold tap for a few minutes, throws out advisory ice, and replaces filter cartridges before normal use (Source 1).
Budget check for the two main options in our scenario: 340 color door hangers cost 340 x $0.90 = $306, and with the $60 poster the total is $366, which leaves $34 for 37 extra color copies. 340 black-and-white door hangers cost 340 x $0.35 = $119, and with the poster the total is $179, which leaves $221 for up to 631 extra copies. Accept any mix whose arithmetic is correct and whose total is $400 or less.
Differentiation
Support
Give these teams a hazard table with the first four rows filled in and the source numbers marked, so their work begins with finding the other four. Provide a decision-chart template with the first two questions already drawn ("Do you get water from the town or from a well?" and "Is the boil-water advisory still on?"). Allow the door hanger to be a single side in the first draft and add the second side in Session 5.
Extension
Ask teams to write a second version of the alert for a household with an infant and an older adult who uses oxygen at home, and to explain in the memo which actions change and why. Teams can also rewrite their door hanger so that every sentence stays under ten words and test whether the reader-test results improve.
ELL supports
Pre-teach "advisory," "wellhead," "sewage," "carbon monoxide," and "contaminated" with a labeled drawing of a flooded house, its well, and the street sewer. Provide a sentence frame for the memo: "We ranked ___ above ___ because Source ___ shows ___." Allow the first draft of the door hanger in the student's stronger language, and let teams record the alert as a pair with each speaker taking half of the script.
Extensions
A county environmental health specialist or an emergency management coordinator can visit to explain how a real health department decides what goes on a flood handout and how it gets the handout to families who cannot be reached by phone. Teams can also compare their kit with a flood-recovery handout from their own state health department and list two things the official handout does that their kit does not, and one thing their kit does better.