Graphic organizer Grade 2 Social Studies & Civics
Litter to Sunny Creek: A Grade 2 Storm Drain Organizer
A grade 2 cause-effect chain organizer tracing litter from a sidewalk into a storm drain and into Sunny Creek, ending with a neighborhood clean-up response.
Objectives
- Students will sequence how litter travels from a sidewalk into a storm drain and then into a creek.
- Students will describe one action neighbors took to improve water quality in their community.
Vocabulary
- Storm drain
- A storm drain is the grate at the edge of a street that swallows rainwater and sends it through pipes to the nearest creek or river. That water is usually not treated, so only rain belongs down the drain.
Teacher overview
This organizer is a cause-and-effect chain: six linked boxes trace what happens after litter is left near a storm drain in the fictional Sunny Creek neighborhood, from the first rainstorm all the way to a neighborhood clean-up day. Storm drains carry rainwater straight to a nearby creek or river without any cleaning step in between, which makes litter near a drain a water-quality problem rather than only a sidewalk problem. Students fill in each box, then use arrows to show how one event leads to the next, practicing the same sequencing skill they use in a story map, applied here to a real community issue instead of a narrative plot.
A teacher can introduce this organizer by asking students where they think water goes after it disappears down a street drain during a storm, then explaining that the drain connects directly to a creek with no cleaning step in between. This organizer makes that hidden path visible, one linked step at a time, and ends by showing that a community's own choices, both the littering and the clean-up, shape what happens to the creek.
Organizer
| Step | What happens | Leads to |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | → | |
| 2 | → | |
| 3 | → | |
| 4 | → | |
| 5 | → | |
| 6 | (end of chain) |
Word bank for filling in the boxes: litter left by a storm drain, rain washes litter into the drain, the drain carries litter straight to Sunny Creek, litter and chemicals pollute the creek water, neighbors notice the pollution and plan a clean-up day, neighbors clean the creek and mark the drains with a warning message.
From Water for Schools (waterforschools.org). This material is in the public domain (CC0) and may be copied, edited, and shared freely.
Completed Exemplar
| Step | What happens | Leads to |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | A plastic bag and a bottle are left on the sidewalk next to a storm drain in the Sunny Creek neighborhood. | → |
| 2 | Rain falls and washes the litter down into the storm drain opening. | → |
| 3 | The storm drain carries the litter straight to Sunny Creek, with no cleaning step along the way. | → |
| 4 | The litter and chemicals inside it pollute the creek water, which can harm fish and plants living there. | → |
| 5 | Neighbors notice the trash in the creek and plan a clean-up day. | → |
| 6 | Neighbors clean up the creek and paint a message next to the storm drains warning people that what they dump goes straight to the creek. | (end of chain) |
Differentiation
Support (below grade level)
Provide picture cards for each of the six events (litter on a sidewalk, rain, a storm drain, a polluted creek, neighbors cleaning, a painted warning sign) that students can arrange in order and glue into the boxes instead of writing full sentences.
Extension (above grade level)
Ask students to add a seventh box describing what might happen if the neighbors' clean-up habit continues every year, and to explain in one or two sentences why repeating the clean-up matters.
ELL supports
Pre-teach "storm drain," "litter," and "pollute" using the picture cards described in Support for every student. Allow the organizer to be completed by pointing to and sequencing the word-bank phrases rather than composing original sentences.