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Worksheet Grade 6 Science

The Okafor Home Water Audit: A Denby Cross Conservation Worksheet

A grade 6 science worksheet where students run a fictional family's home water audit, using real per-day and per-use figures to find savings.

Objectives

  1. Students will use daily and per-use water figures to calculate a household's water use over a week and a month.
  2. Students will propose a way to measure where a home uses the most water and one change that would reduce it.

Vocabulary

Water audit
A careful check of where water goes, either in a home or across a whole water system. Audits find leaks and waste so they can be fixed.

Also: conservation, unit rate, leak

Teacher overview

A home water audit is a simple check of where a household's water goes and where it could waste less. This worksheet follows the Okafor family of Denby Cross, a fictional town, as they use real water figures to study their own use. Students work with a daily household total, the flow of a showerhead, and the yearly waste from a small drip, then suggest one way to measure and cut their use.

The Okafor Home Water Audit: A Denby Cross Conservation Worksheet — Grade 6 Science
Name: ____________________________ Date: ______________

Student Worksheet

Use these facts for the problems below. The Okafor family (a fictional family) has 4 people.

  • The average US household uses about 300 gallons of water per day.
  • A standard showerhead flows at 2.5 gallons per minute.
  • EPA WaterSense says a faucet dripping once per second can waste more than 3,000 gallons per year. The real amount depends on how big each drip is.
  • Household leaks waste about 9,400 gallons per year.
  • In a 2016 Water Research Foundation study of single-family homes, toilets made up about 24 percent of indoor water use.

  1. If a household uses about 300 gallons per day, how many gallons is that in one week (7 days)?

  2. The Okafor home has 4 people. If the family used the 300-gallon daily average, how many gallons per person per day is that?

  3. A standard showerhead flows at 2.5 gallons per minute. How much water does an 8-minute shower use?

  4. Suppose the Okafors use 200 gallons indoors on a summer day. If toilets are about 24 percent of indoor use, about how many gallons went to toilets that day? (Find 24 percent of 200.)

  5. A kitchen faucet in the Okafor home drips once per second. Using the 3,000-gallon figure above, about how many gallons could it waste in one year?

  6. The Okafors fix leaks around the house and cut their yearly leak waste of about 9,400 gallons in half. How many gallons do they save in a year?

  7. Using the 300-gallon daily total, how many gallons does the household use in 30 days?

  8. The Okafors switch to a WaterSense showerhead that uses 2.0 gallons per minute instead of 2.5. Explain how this small change adds up over a year for a family that showers often.

  9. Name two things the Okafor family could measure at home to find where they use the most water, and explain why measuring first helps them save.

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: 2,100 gallons.
    300 gallons per day times 7 days = 2,100 gallons in a week.

  2. Answer: 75 gallons per person per day.
    300 gallons divided by 4 people = 75 gallons for each person each day.

  3. Answer: 20 gallons.
    2.5 gallons per minute times 8 minutes = 20 gallons.

  4. Answer: 48 gallons.
    24 percent of 200 = 0.24 times 200 = 48 gallons to toilets.

  5. Answer: 3,000 gallons.
    EPA WaterSense says a faucet dripping once per second can waste more than 3,000 gallons in a year, and this worksheet uses 3,000 gallons. The real amount depends on how big each drip is.

  6. Answer: 4,700 gallons.
    Half of 9,400 gallons = 9,400 divided by 2 = 4,700 gallons saved per year.

  7. Answer: 9,000 gallons.
    300 gallons per day times 30 days = 9,000 gallons.

  8. Answer: Each shower saves 0.5 gallons per minute, and that saving repeats for every minute of every shower all year. For a family that showers often, those small savings add up to a large yearly total, even though the change feels tiny at each shower.

  9. Answer: Accept any two measurable checks, such as timing showers, reading the water meter before and after a day, counting toilet flushes, or checking faucets for drips. Measuring first shows the family which uses are largest, so they can focus their effort where it saves the most water instead of guessing.

Differentiation

Support

Provide a filled-in example for item 1 (a different daily total worked all the way through) before students begin, and allow a calculator for the multiplication and division. Give the percent in item 4 already written as the decimal 0.24 so students focus on the multiplication.

Extension

Ask students to estimate their own household's weekly water use by counting people at home and multiplying by a per-person figure they choose between 80 and 100 gallons per day, then compare the result with the Okafor family's numbers and explain any difference.

ELL supports

Pre-teach audit, leak, and conservation with simple pictures (a checklist, a dripping faucet, a closed tap). Provide the sentence frame "The family saves ___ gallons because ___" for items 8 and 9, and allow answers as short phrases with a number and unit.