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Reading passage Grade 4 Science

How Immerly Waters Its Parks With Cleaned Water

A grade 4 science passage about a fictional dry-valley town that cleans used water and pipes it to parks through purple pipes, with eight comprehension questions.

Objectives

  1. Students will locate stated details about a water reuse system in an informational passage.
  2. Students will infer why cleaned water is carried in separate, clearly marked pipes.
  3. Students will explain in writing how reusing water lowers the demand on a town's wells.

Vocabulary

Valve
A valve is a device in a pipe that operators can open or close to control where water flows. Valves let crews shut off one street for repairs without turning off the whole town.

Also: reuse, microbe, operator, sample

Teacher overview

This original passage describes a fictional town in a dry valley that stopped watering its parks with well water and built a second pipe system for cleaned water instead. Teachers can assign it during a unit on water use, on the water cycle, or on how communities respond to dry seasons, and it also introduces one water-sector job in plain terms. The questions move from stated details, such as the color of the pipes, to inferences about why the two systems are kept apart and what the town gains. Question 8 gives students a short informative writing task tied directly to details in the text.

How Immerly Waters Its Parks With Cleaned Water — Grade 4 Science
Name: ____________________________ Date: ______________

Passage

The town of Immerly sits in a dry valley. Summer rain is rare there. In most years the town gets only a few storms between June and September. Wells under the town hold Immerly's drinking water, and those wells refill slowly. For many years the town used well water on its parks, its ball fields, and the school lawn. In a dry summer, all that watering pulled the wells down fast.

So the town looked for another supply. Every day, water from sinks, showers, and washing machines flows to the Immerly cleaning plant. The plant screens out trash. It lets heavy bits settle to the bottom. Then it sends the water into tanks full of tiny living things called microbes. The microbes feed on waste that has dissolved in the water. After that, the water moves through sand filters and gets one last cleaning step. What comes out is clear and safe for grass and fields. It is not sent to anyone's kitchen tap.

The town built a second set of pipes to carry that water. Those pipes are purple. Every purple pipe, purple sprinkler head, and purple valve box in Immerly means the same thing. This water has been cleaned, but it is not drinking water. Signs at the ball fields say so in words too. The purple color is not a decoration. It keeps a plumber from joining the two systems by mistake.

Ms. Vellamy is an operator at the Immerly plant, and she works the early shift. Each morning she walks the tanks and checks the screens. She pulls water samples from three spots along the line. She sends the samples to the lab and reads the results before the sprinklers turn on at the park. If a reading looks wrong, she can shut the purple system down. The water then waits in a tank until the problem is fixed. Ms. Vellamy finished high school, trained at the plant with the crew, and passed a state test for her license. Some of her coworkers went to college first. Others came in through an apprenticeship.

The new system has run for several summers now. About six miles of purple pipe water the park, the ball fields, and the school lawn. The well water that used to soak the grass stays in the ground for homes instead. Immerly still checks its wells every week. In a dry valley, water that can be used a second time lowers how much the town must pump.

Questions

  1. Why does Immerly get so little water from rain in the summer?

  2. What color are the pipes that carry the cleaned water?

  3. Name two places in Immerly where the cleaned water is used.

  4. What do the microbes in the tanks do?

  5. The passage says the purple color is not a decoration. Explain what the color is for.

  6. Ms. Vellamy reads the lab results before the sprinklers turn on. Why does she check first instead of later?

  7. Explain how watering the parks with cleaned water helps the wells under Immerly.

  8. Write three or four sentences for a new student. Explain how Immerly's purple pipe system works. Use two details from the passage.

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: The town sits in a dry valley with only a few summer storms.
    The opening paragraph states that summer rain is rare and that most years bring only a few storms between June and September.

  2. Answer: Purple.
    The third paragraph says the town built a second set of pipes for the cleaned water and that those pipes are purple.

  3. Answer: Any two of the park, the ball fields, and the school lawn.
    The final paragraph lists all three places that the purple pipes now water.

  4. Answer: They feed on waste that has dissolved in the water.
    The second paragraph describes tanks full of microbes that feed on dissolved waste after the trash and heavy bits have been removed.

  5. Answer: It warns people that the water is cleaned but not for drinking.
    The passage says every purple pipe, sprinkler head, and valve box carries that meaning, and that the color keeps a plumber from joining the two systems by mistake.

  6. Answer: So she can stop bad water before it reaches the park.
    Accept any answer explaining that a check made afterward would come too late, since the passage says she can shut the system down and hold the water in a tank when a reading looks wrong.

  7. Answer: The wells keep the water that used to be sprayed on the grass.
    Accept any answer noting that the parks now use cleaned water instead of well water, so less is pumped out and more stays underground for homes.

  8. Answer: Accept any paragraph explaining the system with two details from the text.
    A complete response describes used water being cleaned at the plant and sent through purple pipes to outdoor areas, and includes two specifics such as the microbes feeding on dissolved waste, the warning signs at the ball fields, or the six miles of purple pipe.

Differentiation

Support

Read the passage aloud one paragraph at a time and pause after each to have students underline the sentence that answers one question. Provide a two-column chart labeled "drinking water" and "cleaned water" for students to fill in as they read, and allow items 1 through 4 to be answered with the underlined sentence copied out.

Extension

Ask students to write a short set of rules for a plumber working in Immerly, explaining what the purple pipes mean and what must never be connected to them. Students can also compare this passage with a text about a town that has plenty of rain and explain which parts of Immerly's system that town would still find useful.

ELL supports

Pre-teach reuse, microbe, operator, and sample with a labeled flow sketch running from a house to the plant to a purple sprinkler. Provide a picture card of a purple valve box and a blue drinking-water pipe side by side. Give sentence frames for items 5 through 7: "The purple color means ___" and "The wells keep more water because ___."