Writing prompt Grade 9 Health & Consumer Science
Tiverly Park Pool in the Sorrelford Drought: An Argument Prompt
Students argue whether a fictional town should close its only public pool to save water in a drought, weighing heat illness, swim lessons, and water quality.
Objectives
- Students will explain how the body cools itself, how heat illness develops, and why cool water helps lower body temperature.
- Students will evaluate a drought policy by naming its intended outcome and at least one unintended health outcome.
- Students will write an argument with a precise claim, evidence from the background, a fairly stated counterclaim, and a rebuttal.
Vocabulary
Key words: heat exhaustion, heat stroke, cooling center, chloramines, drought restriction, unintended outcome, counterclaim
Teacher overview
During a drought, towns ask residents to give up lawns, gardens, and car washing, and a public pool can start to look like a luxury the town should give up too. This prompt places ninth graders in the fictional town of Sorrelford, where the council has proposed closing its only public pool for the rest of the summer to save water. The background gives both sides real weight: the water the pool uses is small next to what the town uses, yet residents who have let their lawns die see the pool as unfair, and the pool manager warns that keeping it open while cutting its water would make the water worse for swimmers. Students write an argument that evaluates the policy by its intended and unintended outcomes.
Teaching note: students often treat a pool as recreation only and miss its health roles. During hot weather, cool water removes heat from the body much faster than air does, which is why athletic trainers use cold-water tubs to treat heat stroke, and the free swim lessons at a public pool lower drowning risk for children who would otherwise swim in a river or reservoir. Students also tend to assume that a middle option (open, but with less fresh water) must be the reasonable compromise. Pool water quality depends on fresh water and filter backwashing, so the compromise has a health cost of its own, and the best essays notice it.
Prompt
Read the background, then plan and write your essay.
Background: the Sorrelford drought. Sorrelford is a fictional town of about 12,000 people. It is in its second dry summer, and Hobbet Reservoir, the town's water supply, is low. The town council has banned lawn watering, filling home pools, and washing cars at home. It has also asked every household to cut its indoor water use.
Tiverly Park Pool is the town's only public pool. In our scenario, it holds about 280,000 gallons and was filled in May. Six weeks of the summer season are left. To stay open, the pool needs about 8,000 gallons of fresh water a week. That water replaces what is lost to evaporation, splashing, and backwashing the filters. If the pool closes, it would be covered and left full, because draining it would waste the water and can damage the pool. A covered, closed pool would still need about 1,000 gallons a week. Closing it would save about 7,000 gallons a week, or about 42,000 gallons over the rest of the summer. For comparison, the average household in the United States uses about 300 gallons of water a day.
How the body handles heat. The body cools itself mainly by sweating. Sweat takes heat from the skin as it evaporates. In hot, humid weather, sweat evaporates slowly, so the body can overheat. Heat exhaustion causes heavy sweating, dizziness, headache, and nausea. It can turn into heat stroke, a medical emergency in which the body can no longer cool itself. Sitting in cool water pulls heat out of the body much faster than air at the same temperature. That is why athletic trainers treat heat stroke by placing the athlete in a tub of cold water. The people at highest risk from heat include older adults, babies and young children, people with heart or lung disease, and people without air conditioning.
The case for keeping the pool open. Entry is free for children under 16. About 180 children are signed up for the pool's free swim lessons during the last six weeks, and these are the only free lessons in town. Health agencies list drowning among the leading causes of injury death for children, and they recommend swim lessons as one way to lower that risk. The Eastgate apartments, where many units have no air conditioning, are a five-minute walk from the pool. For many teenagers, swimming laps is their main exercise in the summer.
The case for closing the pool. A council member says it is unfair to ask families to let their lawns and gardens die while the town keeps filling a pool. The water department adds that the lawn-watering ban saves far more water than the pool uses, but only if people follow it. Staff worry that residents will ignore the rules if they see the town making an exception for itself. The town could also keep the library and the senior center open longer as air-conditioned cooling centers. These would use almost no extra water and would serve older adults, who are at higher risk from heat than most swimmers.
The pool manager's warning. Some residents have suggested a middle option: keep the pool open but give it less fresh water. The manager says this is not safe. Sweat, sunscreen, and urine from swimmers react with chlorine and form chemicals called chloramines. Chloramines cause red, stinging eyes, coughing, and skin rashes. The pool keeps them down by adding fresh water, which dilutes them, and by backwashing its filters to flush out the trapped dirt and body waste that help form them. With less water, the chloramines build up and swimmers are more likely to get sick. The manager says the pool should either run normally or close.
Your task. Write an argument essay for the Sorrelford Town Council's public comment file. Take a clear position on whether the council should close Tiverly Park Pool for the rest of the summer. Your essay must name the outcome the council intends and at least one outcome it may not intend. Support your claim with at least three pieces of evidence from the background. State the strongest counterclaim fairly, then answer it with a rebuttal. Write five to seven paragraphs.
Planning Organizer
Fill in every row before you draft. Each row becomes part of your essay.
| Part of the essay | My notes |
|---|---|
| My claim: should the council close the pool, keep it open, or do something else? | |
| The outcome the council intends | |
| An outcome the council may not intend | |
| Reason 1 and the evidence from the background that supports it | |
| Reason 2 and the evidence from the background that supports it | |
| Reason 3 and the evidence from the background that supports it | |
| The health idea behind at least one reason (heat, drowning, or pool water) | |
| The strongest counterclaim, stated fairly | |
| My rebuttal and the evidence behind it | |
| My closing recommendation to the council |
From Water for Schools (waterforschools.org). This material is in the public domain (CC0) and may be copied, edited, and shared freely.
Exemplar & Rubric
Exemplar response
The Sorrelford Town Council should keep Tiverly Park Pool open for the rest of the summer and run it normally. The council's goal of saving water during the drought is the right goal, but closing the pool would save very little water and would take away heat relief, exercise, and swim lessons at the worst possible time.
The council intends to save water, so the first question is how much the closure would actually save. Closing the pool would save about 7,000 gallons a week, or about 42,000 gallons over the last six weeks. That sounds like a lot until it is compared with ordinary use. The average household in the United States uses about 300 gallons a day, so the whole savings equals what about 140 households use in a single day. In a town of 12,000 people, that is a very small share of the water the town needs to save.
The closure would also have outcomes the council does not intend. The first is heat illness. In hot, humid weather, sweat evaporates slowly and the body can overheat, and heat exhaustion can turn into heat stroke. Cool water pulls heat out of the body much faster than air does, which is why athletic trainers use cold-water tubs to treat heat stroke. Many units in the Eastgate apartments have no air conditioning, and those families live a five-minute walk from the pool. Closing it removes the easiest way for them to cool down.
The second unintended outcome is the loss of swim lessons. About 180 children are signed up for the only free lessons in town. Health agencies list drowning among the leading causes of injury death for children and recommend swim lessons to lower the risk. During a drought summer, children who cannot swim may try the river or the low reservoir instead, where no lifeguard is watching. The pool is also the main summer exercise for many teenagers.
The strongest argument for closing the pool is fairness. Families who have watched their lawns and gardens die have a real reason to be angry if the town keeps filling a pool. The water department is right that the lawn ban only works if people follow it, and a town that seems to make an exception for itself could lose their cooperation. This concern is serious, and the council should answer it directly instead of ignoring it.
The best answer is to be open about the numbers. The council can post the pool's weekly water use at the entrance and in the paper, next to how much the lawn ban saves. It can also open the library and the senior center as cooling centers, which would protect older adults, who face the highest heat risk and are less likely to swim. The council should not choose the middle option of giving the pool less water, because the manager explained that chloramines would build up and cause red eyes, coughing, rashes, and more illness.
Sorrelford should keep Tiverly Park Pool open and running normally, share its water numbers honestly, and add cooling centers. That plan gives up only a small amount of water savings, and it protects the health of far more people than a closed pool would.
Rubric
| Criterion | Emerging | Developing | Proficient | Advanced |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claim and policy evaluation | No clear position, or the essay argues about drought in general instead of the pool decision. | States a position but does not name the council's intended outcome or any unintended outcome. | States a precise claim and names the intended outcome and at least one unintended outcome of the plan. | Weighs the intended outcome against two or more unintended outcomes and makes a specific recommendation that follows from that comparison. |
| Evidence and health reasoning | Uses no evidence from the background, or states health ideas that are wrong. | Repeats one or two facts without explaining how they support the claim. | Uses at least three pieces of evidence and correctly explains the health idea behind at least one, such as how cool water lowers body heat. | Uses evidence precisely, including a comparison of the pool's water use with ordinary use, and explains two health ideas correctly. |
| Counterclaim and rebuttal | No counterclaim appears. | Mentions the other side in a sentence but does not answer it. | States the strongest counterclaim fairly and answers it with evidence. | Grants what is true in the counterclaim, answers it with evidence, and addresses the middle option using the pool manager's warning. |
| Organization and conventions | Ideas are hard to follow, and errors often block meaning. | Paragraphs exist, but transitions are weak and errors are noticeable. | Each paragraph has one job, transitions connect the ideas, and errors are few. | The essay builds from claim to recommendation with purposeful transitions and a precise, formal style that suits a public comment file. |
Differentiation
Support
Provide sentence starters for each organizer row, such as "The council intends to ___, but closing the pool may also ___." Allow students to write four paragraphs instead of five to seven, combining the counterclaim and rebuttal into one paragraph. Before drafting, read the heat section aloud and have students underline the one sentence that explains why cool water helps.
Extension
Ask students to add a short paragraph that tests their recommendation against a harder version of the drought in our scenario, in which the council must cut the town's total water use again next month. Students decide whether their position still holds and explain what evidence would change their mind. Students may also rewrite the exemplar's final paragraph for a different audience, the Eastgate apartments tenant association, and note which evidence they moved to the front and why.
ELL supports
Pre-teach "drought," "evaporate," "heat stroke," "cooling center," and "counterclaim" with a simple diagram that shows sweat leaving the skin and a person in a pool. Let students complete the organizer with short phrases and a bilingual glossary before they write full sentences. Offer a paragraph frame for the rebuttal: "Some people say ___. This is partly true because ___. However, ___ shows that ___."
Extensions
Students can attend or watch a recording of a local council or parks board meeting and note how speakers use evidence when they argue about public facilities. A pool manager or certified pool operator from the community can visit to explain how fresh water, backwashing, and chlorine testing keep pool water safe for swimmers. Students who want to go further can write a one-page heat-safety notice for the fictional Sorrelford cooling centers that tells older adults the warning signs of heat exhaustion and what to do.