Classroom activity Grade 11 Social Studies & Civics
A Wellhead Protection Ordinance for Tilbrook: A Zoning Role-Play
A grade 11 role-play in which six stakeholders negotiate a wellhead protection ordinance for the fictional town of Tilbrook and vote on final zoning rules.
Objectives
- Students will connect surface land-use decisions to risks for the aquifer a town's well draws from.
- Students will negotiate competing economic and environmental interests into a single ordinance.
- Students will explain why wellhead protection rules restrict some zones more than others.
Vocabulary
- Aquifer
- An aquifer is an underground layer of rock, sand, or gravel that holds water in the tiny spaces between its grains. Wells reach down into aquifers to bring water up to the surface.
Also: wellhead protection, recharge zone, ordinance, setback, zoning
Teacher overview
This is a structured negotiation for groups of six, each group serving as the town of Tilbrook's zoning council for one class period. The structure teaches the core idea directly: every land use a stakeholder wins approval for sits above the aquifer that supplies the town's only municipal well, so each economic gain at the surface carries a stated risk to the shared water below, and the group must write one ordinance that its members can pass by majority vote. The activity fits a government or human geography unit and requires no prior groundwater instruction beyond the handout's brief.
Activity Directions
- Before class, print one town brief and one set of six role cards per group, and post a sheet of chart paper per group titled "Draft Ordinance of the Town of Tilbrook."
- Open with a four-minute framing: using the board sketch of the three zones, explain that the town's well draws from an aquifer recharged by rain soaking through the land inside those zones, and that whatever the council permits on the surface can eventually reach the well. State the ending condition up front, which is a final ordinance vote after two negotiation rounds.
- Form groups of six and distribute the brief and role cards. Give students five minutes to read silently and underline their role's two goals.
- Round one, twelve minutes: proceeding clockwise, each stakeholder makes one proposal for what should be allowed or banned in a named zone, posting it as a sticky note on the chart paper. No debate yet; clarifying questions only.
- Round two, fifteen minutes: open negotiation. Stakeholders may amend, combine, or trade proposals. The council chair recognizes speakers and keeps every proposal tied to a specific zone. Encourage conditions and compromises, such as allowing an activity in Zone C that is banned in Zone A, or permitting a use only with inspections.
- Ordinance vote, seven minutes: the chair reads the assembled ordinance zone by zone, the group amends final wording, and members vote. A majority passes each provision; failed provisions are struck.
- Debrief, twelve minutes, whole class: each chair reports one provision their council passed and one it rejected. Then pose the two closing questions. First, which zone did every group regulate most strictly, and what does that reveal about how distance and soil filter risk? Second, which stakeholder's goals were hardest to reconcile with protecting the well, and what would that mean for a real town's tax base and jobs?
- Collect the chart papers. The activity ends when every group has voted and reported. No stakeholder wins outright, since the outcome is an adopted ordinance, which is how an actual zoning decision ends.
Student Handout
Town brief. Tilbrook is a fictional town of a few thousand residents whose single municipal well draws from a sand and gravel aquifer. Rain recharges the aquifer by soaking through the ground inside three mapped zones. Zone A is the land immediately around the wellhead, where anything spilled can reach the well quickly. Zone B is the wider recharge area, where contamination moves slower but still arrives. Zone C is the outer watershed edge, where risks are lowest but not zero. The council must adopt a wellhead protection ordinance stating what is permitted, banned, or conditioned in each zone. Every role below is fictional.
Council chair (town manager). Goals: pass an ordinance by majority vote, and keep at least one revenue-producing use somewhere in the three zones, since the town's budget depends on it.
Utility manager. Goals: ban fuel storage and chemical storage in Zones A and B, and require inspections for any business the council allows in Zone B.
Quarry operator. Goals: win approval to expand the gravel quarry, which sits in Zone B and employs more townspeople than any other business, and avoid conditions so costly the expansion is abandoned.
Dairy farmer. Goals: keep the family farm in Zone B operating, including manure storage, and accept reasonable conditions rather than a ban, since the farm cannot relocate.
Homebuilder. Goals: win approval for forty new houses at the edge of Zone C on septic systems, and prevent the ordinance from extending Zone B rules outward into Zone C.
Neighborhood association representative. Goals: protect the well above all other interests, and secure a written cleanup-cost rule making any business that contaminates the aquifer pay for the damage.
From Water for Schools (waterforschools.org). This material is in the public domain (CC0) and may be copied, edited, and shared freely.
Differentiation
Support
Assign the utility manager and neighborhood representative roles to students who benefit from clearly aligned goals, since those two roles rarely conflict. Provide a proposal frame for round one: "In Zone ___, I propose we ___ because ___."
Extension
Add a complication card midway through round two: a routine test detects a small amount of quarry runoff in a Zone B monitoring well. Ask the group to decide whether the finding reopens any provision already agreed to, and require the chair to rule on the procedure.
ELL supports
Pre-teach aquifer, recharge, and ordinance using a simple cross-section sketch showing rain moving down through the three zones toward the well. Allow proposals to be written on sticky notes before being read aloud, and pair the chair role with a co-chair where helpful.
Extensions
Groups can trade final ordinances and write a two-sentence review of another council's document, naming its strongest protection and the provision most likely to face a legal challenge from an affected landowner.