Reading passage Grade 3 Science
The Cleanup at Elm Creek: A Grade 3 Water Pollution Story
A grade 3 informational passage following a class club that checks four spots along a fictional creek, finds trash and litter, and organizes a cleanup.
Objectives
- Students will identify the steps a class club took to find and address pollution along a creek.
- Students will explain how litter on land can end up affecting water in a creek.
- Students will make an inference about why testing more than one spot along the creek mattered.
Vocabulary
- Watershed
- A watershed is all the land where rain that falls will drain to the same stream, river, or lake. Everyone lives in a watershed, no matter how far from the water they live.
Also: pollution, litter, cleanup
Teacher overview
This passage follows a fictional third-grade club at a fictional school as its members walk along Elm Creek, check the water at four spots, and decide what to do about the litter they find. It gives students a concrete story about water pollution and cleanup that connects directly to the idea of a watershed, the whole area of land where rain drains toward the same creek.
Passage
Every Tuesday, a group of third graders met at Elm Creek. They called their group the Creek Crew. Their teacher was Ms. Patel. She said Elm Creek was part of a watershed. Rain falls on nearby hills and streets. Then it drains downhill into the same creek.
The Creek Crew checked four spots every week. One spot was near the park. One was behind an old mill. One was under a bridge. One was where the creek met the river. At each spot, the crew looked at the water. They wrote down what they saw.
Near the park, the water looked clear. The crew saw small fish by the bank. Behind the old mill, the water looked cloudy. The crew found plastic bottles. They found a torn bag too, caught in the reeds. Under the bridge, they found the most litter of all. They found candy wrappers. They found a flat soccer ball. They found tangled fishing line on a branch. Where the creek met the river, the water looked clear again. But the crew saw an oily film near a drain.
"Why is it clean by the park but messy under the bridge?" asked a student named Marcus.
Ms. Patel explained why. Trash near a road often gets picked up by rain. Storm drains carry that trash into the creek. Storm drain water does not get cleaned first, the way tap water does. Wind can blow litter too. Loose litter often gets stuck under a bridge, caught on branches and rocks.
The Creek Crew learned something important. One spot alone could not show the whole picture. If they had checked only the park, they might have thought the whole creek was clean. Checking four spots showed exactly where the problem was worst.
On Saturday, the Creek Crew asked the whole school to help. Parents and teachers came to keep everyone safe. Volunteers wore gloves. They carried trash bags. They worked in pairs near the bridge, since that spot had the most litter. By late morning, they had filled several bags with wrappers, bottles, and fishing line. They planned to check that same spot again the next Tuesday.
Questions
- Which of the four spots had the most litter?
- How does litter get from a road into the creek, according to Ms. Patel?
- Why do you think the water looked cloudy behind the old mill? Use details from the passage.
- What is a watershed? Use Elm Creek as your example.
- Why did the Creek Crew check four spots instead of just one?
- What did the Creek Crew do on Saturday?
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: Under the bridge. The passage states the crew found candy wrappers, a deflated soccer ball, and tangled fishing line there, more litter than at any other spot.
- Answer: Ms. Patel explained that trash on the ground near a road or bridge often gets picked up by rain and carried into the nearest storm drain, and storm drains empty straight into the creek without being cleaned first.
- Answer: Answers will vary. Cloudy water usually has tiny bits of dirt or other material mixed into it. Accept answers that use a detail from the passage, such as Ms. Patel saying that rain falls on nearby hills and streets and drains into the creek, to suggest that dirt or other material washed into the water near the old mill. Bottles and a bag alone would not make the water cloudy.
- Answer: A watershed is the whole area of land where rain drains downhill toward the same creek or river, so anything that happens on that land, like litter, can eventually reach the water, as it does with Elm Creek.
- Answer: Checking only one spot would not show the whole picture. By comparing all four spots, the Creek Crew could see exactly where the pollution problem was worst and plan their cleanup there first, instead of assuming the whole creek matched the cleanest spot.
- Answer: The Creek Crew invited the whole school to a cleanup, and volunteers wore gloves, carried trash bags, and worked near the bridge, filling several bags with litter.
Differentiation
Support (below grade level)
Provide a simple map of the four checked spots in order, labeled with a word or icon for what the crew found at each (fish, bottles, most litter, oily film), for students to reference while answering the questions. Allow question 3 to be answered as a short spoken response instead of writing.
Extension (above grade level)
Ask students to write one paragraph predicting what the Creek Crew might find under the bridge the following Tuesday, after the cleanup, and to explain their prediction using details from the passage about where litter tends to collect.
ELL supports
Pre-teach "watershed," "litter," and "storm drain" with simple drawings: a hill with rain arrows draining toward a creek, a candy wrapper, and a drain grate in a street. Allow students to answer questions 1 and 6 with short phrases rather than full sentences.