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Reading passage Grade 3 Social Studies & Civics

Where Used Water Goes in Harmony Corners

An informational grade 3 passage tracing bath water from a drain in the fictional town of Harmony Corners through the clean-up plant and back to the river.

Objectives

  1. Students will describe, in order, what happens to used water after it goes down a drain.
  2. Students will explain why a town shares one clean-up plant and cares for it together.

Vocabulary

Key words: drain, screen, settle, helper germs

Teacher overview

This original informational passage follows used water in the direction that classroom materials usually leave out, from a bathtub drain in the fictional town of Harmony Corners to the clean-up plant and back to the river. Students meet the screens, settling tanks, helper germs, and workers that turn a town's dirty water back into safe river water. It suits a community-systems unit and pairs naturally with any drain-smart or pollution lesson.

Where Used Water Goes in Harmony Corners — Grade 3 Social Studies & Civics
Name: ____________________________ Date: ______________

Passage

Theo pulled the plug in the bathtub. The gray water spun down the drain and was gone. Gone where?

The water slid down a pipe under Theo's house. That pipe joined a bigger pipe under the street. Used water from sinks, tubs, and washers all over Harmony Corners was moving through it. The big pipe ran downhill, past the school and past the bakery, to a low building at the edge of town. This was the water clean-up plant.

At the plant, the used water got cleaned in steps.

First came the screen. It was a wall of metal bars, like a giant comb. The screen caught the big trash that never should have gone down a drain: wipes, sticks, a small toy boat.

Next came a still, quiet tank. When water sits still, heavy bits sink. Sand and grit slid down to the bottom, and workers took the sunken mess away.

Then came the strangest step. The water flowed into big tanks full of tiny living helpers. These helper germs eat the dirt in used water. That is their whole job. The plant pumps air into the tanks, and the water bubbles like a fish tank, because the helpers need air to live and eat.

After the helpers did their work, the water rested in one more quiet tank. The last bits settled out. Then workers checked the water with careful tests. Only clean, tested water got to leave.

At the end of the plant, the water slipped back into the Blue Duck River, clear and quiet. Fish swam below the pipe's mouth as if nothing had happened at all.

Workers keep the plant running all day and all night, because a town never stops using water. Everyone in Harmony Corners shares this plant. Every home's pipes lead to it, and the whole town counts on it to keep the river clean.

So the plant workers ask one favor: a drain is not a trash can. The screen catches wipes and toys, but every piece of trash makes the work harder. What goes down the drain in Harmony Corners becomes the river by the end of the day.

Questions

  1. Where does Theo's bath water go first after it leaves his house?
  2. What does the screen at the plant catch? Name two things from the passage.
  3. What sinks to the bottom in the first quiet tank?
  4. What do the helper germs do, and why does the plant pump air into their tanks?
  5. What two things happen to the water right before it goes back to the river?
  6. Why do the workers say a drain is not a trash can? Use the last paragraph in 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
  1. Answer: Into a bigger pipe under the street. The passage says the pipe under his house joins the big pipe carrying used water from all over town.
  2. Answer: Any two of: wipes, sticks, a small toy boat. The screen paragraph lists all three as big trash that never should have gone down a drain.
  3. Answer: Sand and grit. The passage says heavy bits sink when water sits still, and workers take the sunken mess away.
  4. Answer: The helper germs eat the dirt in the used water, and the plant pumps air in because the helpers need air to live and eat.
  5. Answer: The last bits settle out in one more quiet tank, and workers check the water with careful tests. Only clean, tested water leaves the plant.
  6. Answer: Because trash makes the cleaning work harder, and what goes down the drain becomes the river by the end of the day. Full credit requires using one of those ideas from the final paragraph.

Differentiation

Support

Before reading, draw the five steps as a row of boxes: screen, quiet tank, helper tanks, last tank, tests. Have students touch each box as that step appears in the passage, then use the boxes to answer questions 3 through 5.

Extension

Ask students to write the favor paragraph from the workers' point of view as a short sign for the school bathroom, keeping the passage's reason: what goes down the drain becomes the river.

ELL supports

Pre-teach "drain," "screen," "settle," and "germs" with sketches, and act out the still-water step by shaking a lidded plastic jar of water and sand and watching the sand sink. Accept two-word answers for questions 2 and 3.

Extensions

Have the class list everything that went down their home drains in one evening, sort the list into things that belong in a drain and things the screen would have to catch, and discuss which items in the second column families could keep out of the drain this week.