Graphic organizer Grade 4 Social Studies & Civics
The Coppermarsh Creek Spills: A Problem to Policy Chain
A grade 4 six-link chain organizer tracing how a fictional town's sewer overflow moved from neighbor complaints to a study, to council options, to an adopted rule.
Objectives
- Students will name the public problem that started a town water rule.
- Students will list two choices a town council weighed before it voted.
- Students will describe what changed after the council adopted its rule.
Vocabulary
Key words: public problem, overflow, sewer, council, rule
Teacher overview
This organizer is a six-link chain, read top to bottom, with an arrow between each link. It maps how one public problem in the fictional town of Coppermarsh became a town rule. The completed exemplar below carries the whole story, so a teacher can read those six rows aloud as a short account while students fill in the chain, or hand out the blank frame the next day as a review of a story the class already knows. Links 2 through 4 carry the weight, because the complaint, the study, and the list of rejected options are the parts of policymaking left out when a rule is explained as something the mayor simply decided. One further point is worth making while the class works: in most towns rain is meant to flow into separate storm drains, and sewer pipes are sized only for wastewater from homes and businesses, which is why rain leaking into sewer pipes causes the trouble in this story.
Organizer
Fill in each link. Then draw an arrow from each link down to the next one.
| Link | What goes here | Your answer |
|---|---|---|
| 1. The public problem | What went wrong, and where | |
| 2. Who spoke up | The people who noticed and told the town | |
| 3. What the town found out | What the study showed about the cause | |
| 4. Choices the council weighed | Two or three plans the council talked about | |
| 5. The rule the council adopted | What the council voted for | |
| 6. What changed after | One thing that is different now |
Last question, under the chain: Which link would be missing if the neighbors had said nothing?
From Water for Schools (waterforschools.org). This material is in the public domain (CC0) and may be copied, edited, and shared freely.
Completed Exemplar
| Link | What goes here | Filled in |
|---|---|---|
| 1. The public problem | What went wrong, and where | After heavy rain, dirty water spilled from the sewer pipes into Little Otter Creek in the fictional town of Coppermarsh. The creek smelled bad and dead fish washed up. |
| 2. Who spoke up | The people who noticed and told the town | Neighbors on Tanyard Street called the town. A fourth grade class that walks by the creek sent letters to the council. A fishing club came to the meeting. |
| 3. What the town found out | What the study showed about the cause | Town workers put dye in roof gutters and sent a camera through the sewer pipes. They found that rain was getting into the sewer through roof gutters hooked to it and through cracked pipes. The pipes filled up in storms and spilled at the low point by the creek. |
| 4. Choices the council weighed | Two or three plans the council talked about | Do nothing and post warning signs. Build a large tank to hold storm flow. Fix the cracked pipes and stop roof gutters from draining into the sewer. |
| 5. The rule the council adopted | What the council voted for | The council voted to fix 2 miles of cracked pipe each year. The rule also says no home may drain its roof gutters into the sewer pipe. |
| 6. What changed after | One thing that is different now | The sewer spilled into the creek once last year instead of six times. The fishing club counted more fish, and the smell after storms went away. |
Last question, under the chain: Link 2 would be missing. If the neighbors had said nothing, the town might not have learned about the spills, so the study in link 3 and the vote in link 5 might never have happened.
Differentiation
Support
Give these students the chain with links 1 and 6 already filled in, so they work inward toward the middle. Provide six sentence strips, one matching each link, and let students place the strips in order before they write anything, then copy the strips into the boxes in their own words.
Extension
Ask students to add a seventh link headed What Could Still Go Wrong, and to write one problem the rule does not solve, such as pipes that crack in a part of town not yet reached. Students can also mark which links involved people who do not work for the town and explain why those links matter.
ELL supports
Pre-teach public problem, council, and rule with three picture cards and one short example each from school life, such as a rule about the lunch line. Allow students to fill the chain with short phrases rather than sentences, and provide the frame "The council voted to ___ because ___." for link 5.
Extensions
Have students use the same six-link chain on a water problem in their own community, such as a boil-water notice, a new watering schedule, or a storm drain marking program, using the town or utility website for the details. Students can also compare two completed chains and mark the link where the two stories differ most.