Worksheet Grade 3 Science
Willow Creek's Flood Barrier: A Grade 3 Rain Data Worksheet
A grade 3 worksheet where students read a scaled rain graph for a fictional town and decide whether its wettest month fits a proposed flood barrier's design plan.
Objectives
- Students will read a scaled bar graph to determine the amount of rainfall in different months.
- Students will use subtraction to compare rainfall totals between months.
- Students will evaluate whether a flood barrier design meets a stated rainfall capacity.
Vocabulary
- Levee
- A long earthen wall built along a river to keep floodwater out of the nearby land. Levees protect many towns, but they can fail if water rises too high.
- Stormwater
- Stormwater is rain or melted snow that flows off roofs, streets, and parking lots. In most towns it goes into storm drains and flows to a stream without being treated, carrying whatever it picked up.
- Precipitation
- Precipitation is any water that falls from clouds to the ground, including rain, snow, sleet, and hail. It is the main way water returns from the sky to the surface of the Earth.
Teacher overview
Willow Creek (a fictional town used for this worksheet) floods along its banks almost every spring, and the town's parks department is deciding whether a small earth flood barrier, called a levee, would hold back the water. This worksheet gives students a scaled bar graph of four months of spring rainfall and asks them to use the graph to check whether the rainiest month stayed within the rainfall limit in a proposed levee's design plan. Reading a scaled bar graph, where one block stands for more than one unit, is new for many third graders, so the worksheet builds up from simple block-counting to comparison and design questions.
Student Worksheet
Willow Creek's parks department tracked rainfall, also called precipitation, for four spring months using a scaled bar graph. On the graph, each block stands for 2 inches of rain. The table shows how many blocks each month gets:
| Month | Number of blocks |
|---|---|
| March | 3 |
| April | 5 |
| May | 4 |
| June | 2 |
Before you start, draw the graph on grid paper. Make one bar for each month, color one square for each block, and label the scale: 1 square = 2 inches.
The parks department is designing a small flood barrier, called a levee, along Willow Creek. The town's plan says the levee is designed for a month with up to 12 inches of rain.
How many blocks are shown for April on the graph?
How many inches of rain fell in April? Show your multiplication (blocks × 2 inches).
How many inches of rain fell in June? Show your multiplication.
Which month had the most rain, and how many inches did that month get?
How many more inches of rain fell in April than in June?
How many more inches of rain fell in April than in May? (First find how many inches fell in May.)
What is the total number of inches of rain that fell across all four months?
Based on the graph, would the rainiest month shown meet the levee plan (designed for a month with up to 12 inches of rain)? Use a number from the graph to explain your answer.
A levee is a raised wall of earth or concrete built next to a creek or river. In your own words, explain what problem a levee is designed to solve.
Which detail from the graph would you use to convince the town council that Willow Creek needs a flood barrier? Explain your reasoning in one or two sentences.
Suppose next spring the rainiest month brings 14 inches of rain instead of 10. Would that month still meet the levee plan from question 8 (up to 12 inches of rain in a month)? Explain.
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: 5 blocks. The table shows 5 blocks for April.
Answer: 10 inches. 5 blocks × 2 inches per block = 10 inches.
Answer: 4 inches. 2 blocks × 2 inches per block = 4 inches.
Answer: 10 inches (April had the most rain). April's bar has more blocks (5) than March (3), May (4), or June (2), so it has the most rain.
Answer: 6 inches. April had 10 inches and June had 4 inches; 10 − 4 = 6 inches.
Answer: 2 inches. May had 8 inches (4 blocks × 2 inches per block); 10 − 8 = 2 inches.
Answer: 28 inches. 6 + 10 + 8 + 4 = 28 inches (March, April, May, June).
Answer: Yes, it would meet the plan. April, the rainiest month, brought 10 inches of rain, which is less than the plan's 12-inch limit, leaving a 2-inch margin (12 − 10 = 2).
Answer: A levee is designed to keep rising creek or river water from spreading onto nearby land, protecting streets, yards, and buildings from flooding.
Answer: Answers will vary. A strong answer points to April's 10 inches of rain, the highest amount on the graph, as evidence that heavy rain is a real and repeated problem for Willow Creek.
Answer: No, it would not meet the plan. Fourteen inches is more than the plan's 12-inch limit, so that month would be 2 inches over the plan's limit (14 − 12 = 2).
Differentiation
Support (below grade level)
Provide a printed version of the graph with the blocks already counted and labeled in inches next to each month, so students can focus on the comparison and reasoning questions (5 through 11) instead of the initial multiplication. Work through item 2 together as a class model before students try item 3 independently.
Extension (above grade level)
Ask students to design their own scaled graph key (for example, each block equals 1 inch instead of 2) and redraw every month's bar using the new key, then explain why each month's rainfall total and the comparison with the levee plan's 12-inch limit stay the same.
ELL supports
Pre-teach the words levee, rainfall, and capacity with a simple labeled sketch of a creek, a raised earth wall, and rising water. Allow items 9 and 10 to be answered with a labeled drawing plus a short phrase rather than a full written explanation.
Extensions
Have students check whether their own community has ever needed flood control near a creek, river, or storm drain, and ask a family member what they remember about a heavy rainstorm. Compare those local observations with Willow Creek's graph to discuss why towns near water plan for their rainiest months.