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Worksheet Grade 6 Science

Hollowmere Middle School Water Audit: Fixtures and Savings

A grade 6 science worksheet where students audit a fictional school's drips and showerheads, then use rates and percent to find the gallons they could save.

Objectives

  1. Students will multiply flow rates and times to find how many gallons fixtures use.
  2. Students will find a percent of a quantity in a household water-use example.
  3. Students will recommend changes that would reduce a school's water use, with numbers to support them.

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.
Flow rate
Flow rate measures how much water moves past a point in a certain amount of time, like gallons per minute through a garden hose. Bigger pipes and stronger pushes give bigger flow rates.
WaterSense
An EPA label on toilets, showerheads, faucets, and irrigation controllers that meet water-saving standards. It works like the ENERGY STAR label, but for water.

Also: conservation

Teacher overview

The custodial team at the fictional Hollowmere Middle School walks the building to find water being wasted. They check dripping sinks and the gym showers, then figure out how much water the school could save. This worksheet uses real conservation facts, such as how much a slow drip can waste in a year, together with Hollowmere's own made-up counts, to give students rate and percent practice.

Hollowmere Middle School Water Audit: Fixtures and Savings — Grade 6 Science
Name: ____________________________ Date: ______________

Student Worksheet

Use these facts and Hollowmere's own numbers to answer the questions. The EPA's WaterSense program says a faucet dripping once each second can waste more than 3,000 gallons in a year; the total depends on how big the drips are. A standard showerhead uses 2.5 gallons each minute. A WaterSense showerhead uses 2.0 gallons each minute or less. In a 2016 Water Research Foundation study of single-family homes, toilets used about 24% of the indoor water.

  1. The custodian at the fictional Hollowmere Middle School finds 3 sinks each dripping once per second. Use 3,000 gallons a year for each dripping faucet. Together, how many gallons a year do the 3 dripping sinks waste?

  2. The school fixes 2 of the 3 dripping sinks. How many gallons a year does fixing those 2 sinks save?

  3. The gym has 4 showerheads. Each older head uses 2.5 gallons per minute. Together, how many gallons per minute do the 4 heads use?

  4. The school could replace all 4 heads with WaterSense heads that use 2.0 gallons per minute. Together, how many gallons per minute would the 4 new heads use?

  5. How many gallons per minute would the school save at the showers by switching all 4 heads to WaterSense heads?

  6. A student takes an 8-minute shower with an older 2.5 gallons-per-minute head. How many gallons does that one shower use?

  7. With a 2.0 gallons-per-minute WaterSense head, how many gallons would the same 8-minute shower use?

  8. In the 2016 study, toilets were about 24% of the indoor water a home used. Suppose a home uses 200 gallons of water indoors in one day. How many of those gallons are used by toilets?

  9. Explain why fixing a slow drip that you can barely hear still matters over a whole year. Use your answer from item 1 or item 2.

  10. List two changes from this worksheet that would save water at Hollowmere. Say which one you think saves more water, and give a reason.

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: 9,000 gallons per year.
    Use 3,000 gallons a year for each dripping faucet. 3 x 3,000 = 9,000 gallons a year.

  2. Answer: 6,000 gallons per year.
    Fixing 2 of the sinks saves 2 x 3,000 = 6,000 gallons a year.

  3. Answer: 10 gallons per minute.
    Each older head uses 2.5 gallons per minute. 4 x 2.5 = 10 gallons per minute.

  4. Answer: 8 gallons per minute.
    Each WaterSense head uses 2.0 gallons per minute. 4 x 2.0 = 8 gallons per minute.

  5. Answer: 2 gallons per minute.
    The older heads use 10 gallons per minute and the new heads use 8. 10 - 8 = 2 gallons per minute saved.

  6. Answer: 20 gallons.
    An 8-minute shower at 2.5 gallons per minute is 8 x 2.5 = 20 gallons.

  7. Answer: 16 gallons.
    An 8-minute shower at 2.0 gallons per minute is 8 x 2.0 = 16 gallons.

  8. Answer: 48 gallons.
    Toilets were about 24% of indoor use in the 2016 study. 24% of 200 gallons is 0.24 x 200 = 48 gallons.

  9. Answer: A slow drip adds up to thousands of gallons over a year.
    From item 1, three drips waste about 9,000 gallons a year, so even one quiet drip wastes a large amount over time. Accept any answer that connects the small drip to a large yearly total.

  10. Answer: Two valid changes are fixing the dripping sinks and switching to WaterSense showerheads.
    Accept either choice for "saves more" if the student supports it. Fixing three sinks saves about 9,000 gallons a year, which students can weigh against the shower savings of 2 gallons per minute of use.

Differentiation

Support

Give students a worked model of item 1 (use 3,000 gallons a year for one drip, so three drips is 3 x 3,000) before they start, and a printed multiplication chart. Group items 3 through 7 together and remind students that "per minute" means the flow for one minute.

Extension

Ask students to estimate how many gallons the gym showers save in a week if the school switches heads and the showers run about 60 minutes a day, using the 2 gallons-per-minute savings from item 5. Have them show each step.

ELL supports

Pre-teach "drip," "flow rate," "per minute," "save," and "WaterSense" with a simple picture. Provide the sentence frame "The ___ uses ___ gallons per minute" for items 3, 4, 6, and 7.