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Debate kit Grade 10 Science

Should Harroway Sell Water to a New Data Center?

A grade 10 science debate kit on a town water contract for a data center, weighing evaporative cooling against closed-loop cooling and the energy each design uses.

Objectives

  1. Students will compare cooling designs that trade water use against electricity use.
  2. Students will evaluate a large industrial water contract using cost and benefit evidence.
  3. Students will deliver a rebuttal grounded in named evidence from the file.

Vocabulary

Consumptive use
The share of water that is truly used up, by evaporating or being taken up by plants, so it cannot return to the river for others. The rest flows back and can be used again downstream.

Also: evaporative cooling, closed-loop cooling, reclaimed water, rate base

Teacher overview

This debate runs as a mock public hearing across two class periods, with one period to prepare and one to argue. Two teams speak for and against a water contract between a fictional town and a proposed data center. The question is genuinely contested, because the cooling design that saves water spends more electricity, while the revenue the town would gain lasts only as long as the data center stays open.

Should Harroway Sell Water to a New Data Center? — Grade 10 Science
Name: ____________________________ Date: ______________

Resolution & Background

Resolution: The fictional town of Harroway should sign a twenty-year contract to supply drinking water to the proposed Ivensworth data center for evaporative cooling.

Background: A large data center makes a great deal of heat. There are two common ways to carry that heat away. Evaporative cooling sprays water across warm coils and lets it evaporate. It uses a lot of water, and most of that water leaves as vapor instead of returning to the sewer. Closed-loop cooling recirculates the same water and dumps the heat with fans and chillers. It uses very little water and a great deal more electricity.

Harroway is a fictional town on the Underhay River with an aging treatment plant and a shrinking tax base. The developer has offered to pay for a new dedicated water main and to sign a long contract at the industrial rate. The town's own supply is comfortable in spring and tight in late August. Across the country, combined water and sewer bills rose about 24 percent from 2019 to 2024 and about 5.1 percent in 2025. A widely used rule of thumb, built from two EPA benchmarks, treats a combined bill above about 4.5 percent of household income as a high burden, and some Harroway households are near that line already.

Roles: Two teams of four argue the resolution. Three students sit as the town council, score with the rubric below, and ask each team one question. One student moderates and keeps time.

Evidence File

Case for signing the contract:

  1. The developer pays for the new main, so the town gains a pipe it could not otherwise afford, and the fictional Harroway public works director has said that main is due for replacement anyway. (Illustrative testimony created for this debate.)
  2. A large steady customer spreads the plant's fixed costs across more units of water sold, which can slow the rise in household bills. Nationally those bills rose about 24 percent from 2019 to 2024 and about 5.1 percent in 2025. (Source: Bluefield Research and industry rate surveys.)
  3. Evaporative cooling uses far less electricity than closed-loop cooling, so if the town refuses water, the same computing is likely to be done elsewhere with a larger power demand attached to it. (Source: standard cooling-system engineering practice.)
  4. The developer has offered to switch to reclaimed water from the town's reclamation plant once that plant is upgraded, which would end the draw on drinking water. (Illustrative offer created for this debate.)

Case against signing the contract:

  1. Evaporative cooling is consumptive. The water leaves as vapor and does not come back to the river or the sewer, so the basin loses it for that season. (Source: standard cooling-system engineering practice.)
  2. The fictional town's supply is already tight in late August. A steady industrial demand removes the cushion the town depends on during a dry summer. (Illustrative local condition created for this debate.)
  3. A widely used rule of thumb, built from two EPA benchmarks, treats combined water and sewer costs above about 4.5 percent of household income as a high burden. If the town borrows to serve one customer and that customer leaves, households carry the debt. (Source: EPA affordability benchmarks.)
  4. A twenty-year contract locks in a design choice. Cooling technology is changing quickly, and the town would have no way to require the closed-loop system later. (Source: standard contracting practice described by the fictional town attorney for this debate.)
  5. A residents' group invented for this debate argues that any contract should require reclaimed water from the start rather than promising it later. (Illustrative testimony created for this debate.)

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
Use of evidence Asserts a position with no evidence from the file Names one piece of evidence without explaining its relevance Names at least two pieces of evidence and explains how each supports the claim Names several pieces of evidence, explains each, and identifies which one carries the most weight
Cost and benefit reasoning Names only a benefit or only a cost Names both but does not compare them Compares the water cost against the revenue and energy benefit using stated criteria Compares costs and benefits, states the priority order used, and names what would change the team's answer
Rebuttal quality Does not respond to the other team Responds without using evidence Rebuts a specific opposing point using evidence from the file Rebuts several opposing points and explains why the team's evidence outweighs them
Organization and delivery Hard to follow; no visible structure Structure present but transitions unclear Clear claim, evidence, and conclusion in each speech Clear structure, confident delivery, and direct answers to the council's questions

Differentiation

Support

Give each team a card with their single strongest point and the sentence frame "Our opponents claim ___, but the evidence shows ___." Allow the opening speech to be read from a written script.

Extension

Ask students to draft two contract conditions that would protect the town if the data center closed early, and to explain which evidence point each condition answers. Have them predict how the developer would respond to each condition.

ELL supports

Pre-teach "evaporative," "closed-loop," "consumptive," and "rate base" with a two-panel diagram showing water leaving as vapor in one system and circulating in the other. Allow rebuttals to be delivered from written notes and permit partner preparation in students' home languages.