Reading passage Grade 6 Science
Prescott Mills and the Pipes You Cannot See
A grade 6 science reading passage about a fictional town's water main break that explains why buried pipes age, break, and cost so much to replace.
Objectives
- Students will identify stated reasons that water pipes age and break.
- Students will read report-card grades in a table and connect them to the passage.
- Students will infer why towns replace only some pipes at a time.
Vocabulary
- Water main
- A big underground pipe that carries drinking water beneath the streets to a neighborhood. Smaller service lines branch off it to reach each building.
- Cast iron pipe
- An old type of water pipe made of iron, some of it laid more than a hundred years ago. Many of these pipes are still in use, and they break more often as they age.
Also: report card, water system
Teacher overview
This passage follows a fictional town, Prescott Mills, through a water main break, and uses the event to explain why underground pipes age, leak, and cost so much to replace. It weaves in real national facts about how often mains break and how engineers grade the country's water system. Teachers can use it to build reading and science skills at the same time, and to start a class talk about the pipes hidden under their own streets.
Passage
Under every street in Prescott Mills, there is a hidden network of pipes. Some pipes carry clean water to homes. Others carry used water away. Most people never see them. The pipes run below the roads, the sidewalks, and the yards. When the water works the way it should, no one thinks about them at all.
One cold morning, that changed. Water bubbled up through a crack in Third Street. A pipe had broken far below the ground. The water spread across two lanes and seeped into a corner shop. City crews came within the hour. They dug down about 10 feet to reach the break. The broken pipe was an old cast iron main. A worker on the crew said it had been in the ground for more than 100 years.
Water pipes do not last forever. Metal pipes rust a little more each year. The ground around them shifts with heat, cold, and the weight of heavy trucks. Inside, water pushes on the pipe walls all day and night. After many years, a weak spot can give way. A small crack can grow into a large break in only a few minutes.
Prescott Mills is not alone. Across the country, a water main breaks about every two minutes. Some breaks are slow leaks that waste water underground. Others flood streets and cut off water to whole neighborhoods. When a big main breaks, crews may tell people to boil their water before they drink it. Boiling keeps families safe while the pipe is repaired.
How worn is the country's water system? Every few years, engineers grade it on a report card. The 2025 report card is shown below.
| System | 2025 grade |
|---|---|
| Drinking water | C- |
| Wastewater | D+ |
A C minus and a D plus are low grades. They warn that much of the system is old and needs repair. Pipes that were buried long ago are now near the end of their useful life.
Fixing all of these pipes will cost a great deal. One national study says the country needs about 625 billion dollars over the next twenty years for drinking water alone. Most of that money is for the pipes that carry water to homes and businesses. That is a huge bill for towns to share. No town can replace every pipe at once, so each one must choose which pipes to fix first.
This choice is hard, because the oldest pipes are buried and out of sight. A town cannot easily tell which pipe will break next. To help, some towns now keep careful maps and records. They track how old each pipe is, what it is made of, and how often it has leaked. Then they replace the weakest pipes before those pipes fail. Fixing a pipe on a plan costs far less than fixing a surprise break in the middle of winter.
Back in Prescott Mills, the crew finished the repair by nightfall. The shop dried out. The water came back on. Most people forgot about the break within a week. Yet the most important pipes in town are still the ones no one can see. They bring clean water to every home, school, and firehouse. When they are cared for, the water simply works.
Questions
What happened on Third Street at the start of the passage?
According to the passage, why do most people never think about water pipes?
About how often does a water main break somewhere in the country?
Look at the table. What grade did drinking water get on the 2025 report card, and what does the passage say low grades warn about?
Why do older pipes break more often than newer ones? Use at least two reasons from the passage.
The passage says fixing the pipes could cost about 625 billion dollars over twenty years. Why might a town choose not to replace all of its old pipes at once?
How do some towns decide which pipes to replace first?
Explain why the writer says the most important pipes in Prescott Mills are the ones no one can see. Use the passage to support your answer.
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: A water pipe broke and water came up through a crack in the street.
The passage opens with water bubbling up through Third Street from a pipe that had broken far below the ground.Answer: The pipes are buried underground, out of sight.
The passage says the pipes run below the roads, sidewalks, and yards, so people never see them and do not think about them when the water works.Answer: About every two minutes.
The passage states that across the country, a water main breaks roughly every two minutes.Answer: Drinking water got a C minus, and low grades warn that much of the system is old and needs repair.
The table shows the C-minus grade, and the paragraph after it explains what the low grades warn about.Answer: Older pipes rust more each year, the ground around them shifts with heat, cold, and heavy trucks, and water pushes on the walls day and night.
Accept any two of these reasons, which the passage gives in the paragraph about why pipes do not last forever.Answer: The cost is huge, so a town cannot afford to replace every pipe at once and must choose which to fix first.
The passage says the bill is about 625 billion dollars and that no town can replace every pipe at one time.Answer: They keep maps and records of each pipe's age, material, and leaks, then replace the weakest pipes first.
The passage describes towns tracking this information to replace pipes before they fail.Answer: The buried pipes bring clean water to every home, school, and firehouse, so the town depends on them even though no one sees them.
Accept any answer that connects the hidden pipes to their importance in delivering clean water, as the last paragraph explains.
Differentiation
Support
Provide a short timeline of the Prescott Mills story (pipe breaks, crews dig down, pipe is repaired, water returns) for students to reference. Let students answer questions 1, 2, and 3 by pointing to the sentence in the passage before writing.
Extension
Ask students to write a short paragraph arguing whether Prescott Mills should spend money now to map and replace old pipes, or wait until pipes break. Have them support their position with at least two details from the passage.
ELL supports
Pre-teach "water main," "cast iron pipe," "report card," and "leak" with a simple picture for each. Allow students to answer the literal questions with short phrases, and provide a sentence frame for question 8: "The hidden pipes are important because ___."