Project Grade 11 Social Studies & Civics

The Prestcott Water Bond: A Grade 11 Ballot Question Project

Across five sessions students produce a neutral voter information sheet, opposing argument statements, and a public forum for a fictional water treatment bond.

Grade: Grade 11
Subject: Social Studies & Civics
Material: Project
Time: 5 sessions, ~300 min total
Prep: Moderate prep
Materials: Printed evidence packet, Chart paper, Timer, Ballot slips and a box

Standards

D2.Civ.9.9-12 C3 Framework

Use appropriate deliberative processes in multiple settings.

How this material aligns: Sessions four and five run a moderated public forum with timed statements and a question period, followed by a secret-ballot vote with a posted tally, which is a formal deliberative process.

All materials for D2.Civ.9.9-12 →

WHST.11-12.2 Common Core ELA

Write informative/explanatory texts, including the narration of historical events, scientific procedures/experiments, or technical processes.

How this material aligns: The clerk team writes a neutral voter information sheet that explains the measure and the tax table accurately for a general audience.

All materials for WHST.11-12.2 →

D2.Eco.1.9-12 C3 Framework

Analyze how incentives influence choices that may result in policies with a range of costs and benefits for different groups.

How this material aligns: The tax impact table and the letters from the renters association and the fixed-income resident require both committees to address how the bond's cost falls on homeowners at different assessed values, on renters, and on households on fixed incomes.

All materials for D2.Eco.1.9-12 →

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This material is in the public domain (CC0) and may be copied, edited, and shared freely, without attribution. Updated 2026-09-04.

Objectives

Students will write a neutral explanation of a ballot measure that a general voter can follow.
Students will build an argument for or against a bond using only evidence supplied in the packet.
Students will analyze how the cost of a bond falls on different households in a city.

Vocabulary

Turbidity: Turbidity is a measure of how cloudy or murky water looks because of tiny particles floating in it. Clear water has low turbidity, and muddy water has high turbidity.
Debt service: The money a utility must pay back each year on loans it took out to build big projects, much like a family paying its mortgage. These payments come out of customers' water bills.

Also: bond measure, assessed value, voter information sheet

Teacher overview

Most water infrastructure in the United States is paid for locally, and in many states a large capital project requires the voters' approval. This project puts a fictional bond question in front of the class and assigns students the three jobs a real referendum requires: a clerk's office that must explain the measure neutrally, two committees that must argue it, and an electorate that must decide. The final deliverables are a one-page voter information sheet, two argument statements, a moderated public forum, and an individual analysis memo written after the vote.

The Prestcott Water Bond: A Grade 11 Ballot Question Project — Grade 11 Social Studies & Civics

Name: ____________________________ Date: ______________

Project Brief

Driving question. Should the voters of Prestcott approve Question 2, and what does each side owe the voters in the way of honest information?

The scenario (fictional). Prestcott is a city of 26,000 people. Its water treatment plant on Orlebar Creek was built in 1958. Over the past two years the plant has twice exceeded the turbidity limit that filtration plants must meet, which is 0.3 NTU in 95 percent of monthly samples and never above 1 NTU. The state has issued a compliance schedule. The council has placed Question 2 on the ballot: a $38 million bond to build a replacement plant.

The client. The fictional Prestcott city clerk, who must mail a voter information sheet to every household, and the voters of Prestcott, played by the class.

The teams. The class divides into three teams. The clerk's office writes the neutral material. The Yes on 2 committee argues for the bond. The No on 2 committee argues against it. Every student, whatever the team, votes at the end.

The evidence packet. All claims must come from these items. Any number a team uses must appear in the packet.

The state compliance schedule and the two turbidity exceedances (fictional city record).
The turbidity requirement itself, which is 0.3 NTU in 95 percent of monthly samples and never above 1 NTU (EPA Surface Water Treatment Rules).
The ASCE 2025 Infrastructure Report Card, which gave United States drinking water a grade of C- and wastewater a grade of D+ (ASCE).
The engineer's report comparing a $38 million replacement plant with a $19 million rehabilitation that the engineer expects to last fifteen years (fictional).
The tax impact table, showing that the bond adds $0.42 for each $1,000 of assessed value, so a home assessed at $180,000 pays about $75.60 a year (fictional).
A letter from the Prestcott Renters Association arguing that renters pay the bond through rent without voting on the tax bill (fictional).
A letter from a retired resident on a fixed income opposing any increase (fictional).

Constraints. The voter information sheet runs no more than 200 words of explanation plus the tax table and a glossary of five terms, and it must be written to be read by a general audience rather than an engineer. Each committee statement runs no more than 300 words and cites at least three packet items. Each forum presentation runs no more than three minutes. No team may state a number that is not in the packet.

Final deliverables. One voter information sheet, two argument statements, two forum presentations, and one analysis memo per student of no more than 400 words.

Milestones

Session 1, claims inventory. Each team reads the full packet and produces a two-column chart listing every claim it intends to make and the packet item supporting it. Claims with no supporting item are struck before the session ends. Checkable output: the posted chart.
Session 2, first drafts. The clerk's office drafts the neutral explanation, the tax table, and the glossary. Each committee drafts its 300-word statement. A second team checks the tax table arithmetic against the packet. Checkable output: three drafts and a signed table check.
Session 3, peer review against the constraints. Teams exchange drafts and score them against the constraint list: word count, citation count, numbers traceable to the packet, and neutrality for the clerk's sheet. Checkable output: a revision memo naming three specific changes each team will make.
Session 4, the public forum. The moderator seats the committees, each delivers its three-minute statement, and the floor takes questions for eight minutes. The clerk's office distributes the finished voter information sheet at the door. Checkable output: the delivered presentations and the moderator's log of questions asked.
Session 5, the vote and the analysis. Students vote by secret ballot, count the result, and post the tally with turnout. Each student then writes the analysis memo naming the argument that moved them, the packet item they found weakest, and one piece of information the sheet should have included. Checkable output: the posted tally and one memo per student.

From Water for Schools (waterforschools.org). This material is in the public domain (CC0) and may be copied, edited, and shared freely.

Rubric

Criterion	Emerging	Developing	Proficient	Advanced
Accuracy and traceability	Uses numbers that do not appear in the packet	Uses packet numbers but misstates one	Every number and claim traces to a named packet item	Every claim traces to a named item, and the team notes where the packet itself is incomplete
Meeting the constraints	Misses the word or time limits substantially	Meets some limits and misses others	Meets the word limit, the time limit, and the citation minimum	Meets every constraint and uses the limit deliberately, cutting weaker material first
Neutrality or persuasion for the assigned role	Confuses the role, arguing in the neutral sheet or reporting in the committee statement	Holds the role unevenly across the document	Holds the assigned role throughout	Holds the role throughout and anticipates how the other role will read the document
Analysis memo	Names a preference with no reasoning	Names an argument that moved the writer without evidence	Names the argument, the evidence behind it, and one gap in the packet	Names the argument and the gap, and explains how the gap could change the outcome of the vote

Differentiation

Support

Provide a completed claims inventory row and a model 60-word neutral paragraph about a different fictional measure so students can see the register the clerk's sheet requires. Allow supported students to take the glossary and tax table portion of the clerk's work rather than the narrative.

Extension

Have students draft the second version of the ballot question that the council would place before voters if Question 2 failed, and explain in a paragraph which packet item drove each change.

ELL supports

Pre-teach "bond," "assessed value," "turbidity," and "debt service" with a definition, an example, and a simple picture. Provide a bilingual glossary template for the clerk's sheet, since real voter materials are often published in more than one language, and allow forum statements to be read from a prepared script.

Extensions

Students find a real voter information pamphlet published by a county or city elections office and compare its neutral summary with the one their clerk's office wrote, listing two features the real pamphlet includes that the class version left out.