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Worksheet Grade 2 Science

Salty Bay or Fresh Lake: Where Havenrow Gets Its Water

Grade 2 students read a map chart of a fictional coastal town, model its hill, lake, creek, marsh, and bay in order, and tell salt water from fresh water.

Objectives

  1. Students will order five places in a town from the highest ground to the lowest.
  2. Students will draw and label a model of the land and water around one town.
  3. Students will tell which nearby water is salt water and which is fresh water.

Vocabulary

Fresh water
Fresh water is water with very little salt in it, the kind found in most rivers, lakes, and groundwater, and the kind people and land animals need to drink. It is different from the salty water that fills the oceans.

Also: bay, marsh, creek, salt water, downhill

Teacher overview

Havenrow is a fictional coastal town with water on two sides, and the chart on this sheet gives students the clues they need to work out which of those waters the town can actually drink. The chart never labels the bay as salty or the lake as fresh, so students reach those answers from the clues about the ocean tide and the melted snow. Second graders commonly treat all water as one kind, and a student who has not sorted salt from fresh may send the town's pipe to whichever water looks biggest on the page. Draw the five places as a simple side view on the board, left to right from the hill down to the bay, before students attempt the model in question 7.

Salty Bay or Fresh Lake: Where Havenrow Gets Its Water — Grade 2 Science
Name: ____________________________ Date: ______________

Student Worksheet

Havenrow is a small town by the sea. There is water on two sides of it. This chart lists five places on the town map.

Place Land or water How high it sits A clue about it
Skellow Hill Land Highest Snow sits on top of it all winter
Skellow Lake Water High Rain and melted snow fill it
Skellow Creek Water Middle It runs from the lake to the bay
Pell Marsh Water Low Shallow and muddy; the creek runs through it
Havenrow Bay Water Lowest The ocean flows in and out with the tide

The town's pipe goes to Skellow Lake. A pump sends that water to the taps in Havenrow.

  1. Name the highest place on the chart.
  2. Name the lowest place on the chart.
  3. Skellow Creek runs from the lake to the bay. Does the creek run downhill or uphill?
  4. The ocean flows in and out of Havenrow Bay. Is the bay water salt or fresh?
  5. Rain and melted snow fill Skellow Lake. Is the lake water salt or fresh?
  6. The town's pipe goes to the lake and not to the bay. Tell why.
  7. On the back of this sheet, draw the five places in order from the hill down to the bay. Label each one.
  8. In January the top of Pell Marsh turns to ice. Is that water solid or liquid then?
  9. Under that ice the marsh water still moves. Is that water solid or liquid?
  10. The town thinks about taking water from Pell Marsh instead. Marsh water is fresh, but it is very muddy. Name one job the town would have to do first.

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: Skellow Hill. The chart lists it as the highest place on the map.
  2. Answer: Havenrow Bay. The chart lists it as the lowest place on the map.
  3. Answer: Downhill. The lake sits high and the bay sits lowest, so the creek runs down from one to the other.
  4. Answer: Salt. Ocean water is salty, and the chart says the ocean flows in and out of the bay with the tide.
  5. Answer: Fresh. Rain and melted snow are fresh water, and the chart says they are what fills the lake.
  6. Answer: The bay holds salt water, which people cannot drink, while the lake holds fresh water. Accept any answer naming the salt as the reason.
  7. Answer: A labeled drawing showing Skellow Hill first, then Skellow Lake, then Skellow Creek, then Pell Marsh, then Havenrow Bay, going from high ground down to the water at the bottom. Accept a side view or a flat map so long as the order and the labels are right.
  8. Answer: Solid. Ice is water in its solid form.
  9. Answer: Liquid. The water below the ice still flows, so it stayed liquid while only the top froze.
  10. Answer: Accept any answer naming a step to take the mud out, such as cleaning it, filtering it, or letting the mud settle first, before the water could go to the taps.

Differentiation

Support

Hand these students a half-finished model for question 7 with the hill and the bay already drawn at the two ends, so they place only the three middle waters. Limit the sheet to questions 1, 2, 4, 5, and 6, and allow the salt and fresh answers to be given by circling a word.

Extension

Ask students to add a second town to their model, up on Skellow Hill above the lake, and to write where that town would put its pipe. Any answer works when the reason names the need for fresh water that sits above the town or the need for a pump.

ELL supports

Set out a cup of tap water and a cup of water stirred with a spoon of table salt, and let students watch the salt go in without tasting either cup, so that "fresh" and "salt" attach to a real difference. Provide the sentence frame "The ___ holds ___ water," and accept the model in question 7 with picture labels instead of written words.

Extensions

Show a local map and ask students to find the nearest lake, river, or bay and to say which one their own town's water most likely comes from. Have them explain the choice using the salt and fresh idea from this sheet.