Classroom activity Grade 5 Science
Four Jobs at Verrick Ridge: A Grade 5 Water Plant Rotation
Groups rotate through four stations at a fictional water plant, making each worker's shift decision and explaining how the four jobs protect one town's water supply.
Objectives
- Students will make the decision a water plant worker makes at each of four stations.
- Students will use the numbers on each station card to justify the decision they made.
- Students will explain how two of the four jobs help keep a town's drinking water safe.
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: operator, laboratory technician, settling, route
Teacher overview
This is a four-station rotation for groups of four to six students, set at the fictional Verrick Ridge water plant. Each station holds the information one worker sees at the start of a shift, and the group has to make that worker's actual decision before the timer sends them on. Each station stands for one of the jobs a small utility needs, and a group cannot answer a station without using the numbers that job depends on. A misconception this activity addresses is the belief that a water plant is run by a single person watching a machine; students who have rotated through all four stations can name four different people whose separate decisions have to line up before water reaches a tap.
Activity Directions
Setup before class (moderate prep): Post the four station signs in four corners of the room, each naming one job: Station 1, plant operator; Station 2, laboratory technician; Station 3, distribution crew; Station 4, engineer. Print one handout for each student. The handout carries all four stations' numbers, so no station card is needed beyond the sign.
Step 1, introduction (5 min): Tell students that Verrick Ridge is a small town whose water plant runs with four workers on shift. Read the four job names aloud and say that each group will sit in all four chairs today. Divide the class into four groups of four to six students and send each group to a different station.
Step 2, rotation rounds (8 min at each of four stations, 32 min total): At each station, the group reads that station's block on the handout, talks through the decision, and each student writes the answers to that station's numbered items. Call time at eight minutes and rotate every group one station clockwise. The activity ends when every group has sat at all four stations, which is after the fourth round.
Step 3, debrief (8 min): Ask one group to report the plant operator's settling decision and the number that drove it. Ask a second group to name the sample the laboratory technician sent back for a retest. Then put the closing question to the whole class: if the distribution crew closed the Elm Street valve as well as the two on the broken street, who in town would notice, and would that be the better choice? Close by having each student read aloud the two jobs they named in item 9.
Student Handout
Station 1, plant operator. The operator checks how cloudy the raw water is and gives it a cloudiness score. The plant chart says: score 1 or 2, let it settle 2 hours; score 3 or 4, let it settle 3 hours; score 5 or higher, let it settle 4 hours. This morning the raw water scores 3.
- How many hours should the operator let this water settle?
- Settling starts at 8:00 in the morning. What time is the water ready for the filters?
Station 2, laboratory technician. The technician scores four samples for cloudiness. The plant's own limit is a score of 2 or lower. Sample A scores 1. Sample B scores 4. Sample C scores 2. Sample D scores 0.
- How many of the four samples are at or under the plant's limit of 2?
- Which sample must be tested again?
Station 3, distribution crew. A pipe breaks on Ash Street. Closing the two valves, one at each end of Ash Street, shuts off water to 14 houses. Closing the Elm Street valve as well shuts off water to 31 houses in all.
- How many more houses lose water if the crew also closes the Elm Street valve?
- The crew wants to fix the break while shutting off as few homes as possible. Which choice should they make?
Station 4, engineer. Two pipe routes can reach the new school. Route A is 1,250 feet long and crosses 1 road. Route B is 940 feet long and crosses 3 roads. The town allows up to 1,500 feet of new pipe. When two routes both fit under that limit, the town picks the one with fewer road crossings.
- How much shorter is Route B than Route A?
- Which route should the engineer pick, and what rule decides it?
After all four stations.
- Pick two of the four jobs. For each one, write a sentence explaining how that worker helps keep Verrick Ridge's drinking water safe.
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: 3 hours. The raw water scores 3, and the chart says a score of 3 or 4 gets 3 hours of settling.
- Answer: 11:00 in the morning. Settling starts at 8:00 and runs for 3 hours, so 8:00 plus 3 hours is 11:00.
- Answer: 3 samples. Sample A at 1, Sample C at 2, and Sample D at 0 are all at or under the limit of 2.
- Answer: Sample B. Its score of 4 is above the plant's limit of 2, so it is the only one that has to be tested again.
- Answer: 17 houses. Closing the Elm Street valve as well raises the total from 14 houses to 31 houses, and 31 - 14 = 17 more houses.
- Answer: Close only the two Ash Street valves. That choice shuts off 14 houses instead of 31, which is 17 fewer homes without water while the crew works.
- Answer: 310 feet. Subtract the shorter route from the longer one: 1,250 - 940 = 310 feet shorter.
- Answer: Route A. Both routes fit under the 1,500-foot limit, and the town's rule in that case is to pick the route with fewer road crossings, which is Route A with 1 crossing against Route B with 3.
- Answer: Any two jobs with a matching reason. The operator gives cloudy water enough settling time so the filters are not overloaded. The laboratory technician catches a sample that is too cloudy before that water leaves the plant. The distribution crew shuts off the smallest number of homes and keeps the broken pipe from drawing in dirt. The engineer routes new pipe so it stays within the town's limits and crosses fewer roads. Accept any two sentences that name a job and connect it to keeping water safe or reliable.
Differentiation
Support
Seat these students with a partner who reads each station block aloud before the group discusses it, and give them a handout copy with the key number in each block underlined. For items 5 and 7, provide the subtraction already written out with the two numbers in place.
Extension
Ask these students to write a fifth station of their own for a job the plant also needs, such as the person who orders supplies or the person who reads meters. They must write the block of information that worker would see, one numbered question with a single correct answer, and the answer itself.
ELL supports
Provide a picture card at each station showing the worker and one tool of that job, such as a clipboard, a test tube, a valve key, and a map. Pre-teach settle, sample, valve, and route with those images, and allow items 6, 8, and 9 to be answered with a labeled drawing plus a short phrase.
Extensions
Invite a worker from the local water or sewer utility to visit for fifteen minutes and answer the class's questions about which of the four station jobs is closest to their own, or have students write those questions as a letter the teacher sends on their behalf.