Worksheet Grade 2 Science

Four Spots on Thistleford Creek: Finding the Cloudy Water

Grade 2 students compare four water samples taken down the length of a creek after a rainy night, find where the water turns cloudy, and name the source.

Grade: Grade 2
Subject: Science
Material: Worksheet
Time: 30 min
Prep: No prep
Materials: Printed copies of the worksheet, Pencils

Standards

2-PS1-1 NGSS

Plan and conduct an investigation to describe and classify different kinds of materials by their observable properties.

How this material aligns: Questions 2, 3, 7 and 8 have students describe and classify four creek samples by observable properties, whether a black mark shows through and what floats on top.

All materials for 2-PS1-1 →

K-2-ETS1-1 NGSS

Ask questions, make observations, and gather information about a situation people want to change to define a simple problem that can be solved through the development of a new or improved object or tool.

How this material aligns: Questions 4, 5 and 10 have students use the gathered observations to define the simple problem the neighborhood wants solved, keeping parking lot runoff out of the creek.

All materials for K-2-ETS1-1 →

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This material is in the public domain (CC0) and may be copied, edited, and shared freely, without attribution. Updated 2026-09-04.

Objectives

Students will describe four creek samples by how clear each one is and what floats on it.
Students will find the stretch of creek where the water changes from clear to cloudy.
Students will name the problem the neighborhood should work on first.

Vocabulary

Key words: creek, clear, cloudy, sample, film, runoff

Teacher overview

Thistleford Creek is fictional, and the four samples on this sheet were taken the morning after a night of rain, at four spots that lie one below the next as the creek runs downhill. Because the samples come in order, the table lets students find the stretch where the water changes rather than only judging one jar as dirty. Second graders usually think of water pollution as the things they can pick out of the water, such as a cup or a bag, and read brown water as no more than dirt that was already in the creek. Sampling above and below the parking lot puts a source in front of them, so have students trace the flow direction with a finger before they answer question 4.

Four Spots on Thistleford Creek: Finding the Cloudy Water — Grade 2 Science

Name: ____________________________ Date: ______________

Student Worksheet

The class walked down Thistleford Creek after a rainy night. They stopped at four spots. Spot 1 is the highest. The water flows from Spot 1 down past Spot 2, then Spot 3, then Spot 4. At each spot they filled a clean jar. Then they held the jar over a card with a black X and looked down through the water. Here is the chart they made.

Spot	What is just above it	Could you see the X through the jar?	What floated on top
Spot 1	Woods	Yes, easy to see	Nothing
Spot 2	A grass ball field	Yes, easy to see	Two small leaves
Spot 3	A parking lot	No, the X was hidden	A thin shiny film
Spot 4	A road bridge	No, the X was hidden	A thin shiny film

Which way does the water flow, from Spot 1 to Spot 4, or from Spot 4 to Spot 1?
At which spots could the class see the X through the water?
At which spots was the X hidden?
The water changed from clear to cloudy between two spots. Name those two spots.
What sits just above the first cloudy spot?
Rain ran off that place and into the creek. Name one thing the rain could have washed in.
Write two words that tell what the water at Spot 1 looked like.
Write two words that tell what the water at Spot 3 looked like.
A shiny film floated at Spots 3 and 4 but not at Spots 1 and 2. Tell what that shows.
The class wants the creek to run clear again. Write the problem they should work on 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

Answer: From Spot 1 to Spot 4. The sheet states that Spot 1 is the highest and the water runs downhill past the other three in order.
Answer: Spots 1 and 2. Both rows say the X was easy to see through the jar.
Answer: Spots 3 and 4. Both rows say the X was hidden.
Answer: Between Spot 2 and Spot 3. Spot 2 was still clear and Spot 3 was the first cloudy one, so the change happened along that stretch.
Answer: The parking lot. The chart lists a parking lot just above Spot 3.
Answer: Accept any answer naming something washed off a parking lot, such as dirt, grit, sand, oil drips, or bits of trash.
Answer: Accept any two words that fit the row, such as clear, clean, see-through, or plain.
Answer: Accept any two words that fit the row, such as cloudy, murky, dirty, or shiny on top.
Answer: It shows the film came from the parking lot, not from the woods or the ball field, because the film appears only at the spots below the lot. Accept any answer that puts the start of the film at the parking lot.
Answer: Accept any answer naming the parking lot runoff as the problem, such as stopping the dirt and oil from the parking lot from reaching the creek. A plan is not required yet, only a clear problem.

Differentiation

Support

Give these students the chart with the two cloudy rows shaded, and have them place a counter on each shaded row before answering. Limit the sheet to questions 1, 2, 3, 5, and 10, and let answers be given by pointing at a row.

Extension

Ask students to write where they would take a fifth sample to check whether the parking lot is really the source, and to say what result would show they were right. Any spot placed between the ball field and the parking lot works when the reasoning names clear water there.

ELL supports

Before the sheet, hold a jar of tap water and a jar of water stirred with a spoon of soil over a card marked with an X so that "clear" and "cloudy" attach to something visible. Provide the word bank clear, cloudy, film, above, below, and allow the spot answers in questions 2, 3, and 4 to be written as numbers alone.

Extensions

Take two jars from a single puddle, one as the rain starts and one after it has run for a while, and hold each over the same black X. An adult fills the jars, and students wash their hands after handling puddle water. Ask which jar looked most like the water at Spot 3 and why the timing might matter.