Classroom activity Grade 3 Social Studies & Civics
Choosing a Town Site in the Meadow Fork Valley
Settler teams study a valley map with a river bend, a spring, and a marsh, choose where to build their town, then test the choice against flood and dry-summer cards.
Objectives
- Students will choose a town site using water features on a map and give reasons for the choice.
- Students will explain how a flood or a dry summer tests a settlement's location.
Vocabulary
- Spring
- A spring is a place where groundwater flows out of the ground on its own. Springs form where the water table meets the land surface, often on hillsides or at the bottom of slopes.
Also: valley, marsh, flood
Teacher overview
This is a map-and-decision game for teams of about four students, set in the fictional Meadow Fork Valley. Each team plays a group of settlers choosing where to build a town, and the map's water features drive the whole decision, because every spot offers water in a different way and carries a different risk. Two event cards, a flood and a dry summer, then test each team's choice, so students can work out for themselves why real towns tend to sit where they do.
Activity Directions
- Before class, draw the valley map once on chart paper or the board and copy it for each team. The map shows: the Meadow Fork river crossing the valley with one wide bend, and a line of old driftwood a few steps up from the bend marking how high floods have reached; a clear spring at the foot of the hills, small but steady; a green marsh where the ground stays soggy; and a flat, dry hilltop far from both the river and the spring.
- Explain the setup: each team is a family group of settlers arriving in the valley with wagons. They need water for drinking, cooking, washing, gardens, and animals, every single day. Tell teams the map's features honestly show what settlers could see: the driftwood line shows where flood water has been, the spring runs steady but small, the marsh is wet but not drinkable, and the hilltop is safe but dry.
- Give teams eight minutes to talk and place their sticky dot where their town will go. Each team writes two water reasons for its spot on a slip of paper, one about getting water and one about staying safe from water.
- Have each team present its site and reasons in under a minute. Post the dots on your master map so the class can see the spread of choices.
- Play event card 1, Flood: spring rains push the Meadow Fork past the driftwood line. Ask each team in turn: does the water reach your town? Teams at the bend or below the driftwood line explain what their settlers would do; other teams say why their site stayed dry.
- Play event card 2, Dry Summer: the river runs low and warm, but the spring at the foot of the hills keeps trickling. Ask each team: where does your town get water this summer, and how far must it be carried? Hilltop teams count the long haul, while teams near the spring describe their short walk.
- The game ends after both event cards have been played and every team has answered both. Teams may then move their dot once, if they wish, and must state which event changed their mind.
- Debrief with the handout questions. Close by naming the pattern the game just taught, which is that settlers generally looked for a spot near steady water and above the flood line, and that the settlements which lasted were usually the ones that managed both.
Student Handout
Answer together as a team after both event cards.
- Which spot on the map floods when the river rises past the driftwood line?
- Which water source on the map still gives water during the dry summer card?
- Why is the flat hilltop a hard place for a town, even though it never floods?
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: The land at the river bend, and any spot below the driftwood line. The flood card says the river rises past that line, which marks how high floods reach.
- Answer: The spring at the foot of the hills. The dry summer card says the river runs low while the spring keeps trickling, because it is fed from under the ground.
- Answer: Because it is far from both the river and the spring, so every bucket of water must be carried uphill every day. Safe from flooding is not enough if daily water is a long haul.
Differentiation
Support
Mark the driftwood line in red on the team maps and add small picture icons for the spring, marsh, and hilltop. Let teams answer the presentation step with the frame "We chose here because ___ and because ___."
Extension
Have students draw one improvement their settlers could build to fix their site's weakness, such as a raised path, a well near the spring, or barrels for a dry summer, and explain what the improvement protects against.
ELL supports
Pre-teach "spring," "marsh," "flood," and "valley" with the map icons before play, and model one full team presentation aloud. Accept event-card answers of "safe" or "not safe" followed by pointing to the map feature that explains why.
Extensions
Show the class a simple map of your own town or a nearby one and ask students to find its water: the river, lake, or wells it grew beside. Discuss whether the oldest part of town sits near the water, and whether any part of town has ever needed protecting from it.