Project Grade 4 Social Studies & Civics
Where Should Selby Row Begin? A Water and Maps Project
A four-session grade 4 project where teams weigh four river valley sites for a fictional 1848 town, then defend one choice with a labeled map and a recommendation.
Objectives
- Students will compare four town sites using what each one offers for water.
- Students will draw and label a map that shows a town's water source and flood line.
- Students will write a recommendation that supports one site choice with three reasons.
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: site, flood plain, bluff, settlement
Teacher overview
The driving question is where a group of families in 1848 should build a new town in a fictional river valley, and what water has to do with the answer. Teams weigh four sites that each offer something different, then defend one choice with a labeled map poster and a written recommendation delivered at a founders' meeting played by the class. The site closest to the river is the easy pick in Session 1, because rivers mean boats, fish, and easy water. Towns founded on that reasoning were flooded again and again, and many later moved uphill or built levees. The four site cards are written so that no site is simply best, which forces the reasoning the rubric scores. One further point belongs in the framing of the project: the valley is invented, yet land chosen for new towns in 1848 was in nearly every case already known and used by Native nations, and a class ready for that question can take it up alongside the site work.
Project Brief
Driving question: Where should the families build Selby Row, and how should water help them decide?
The year is 1848. Selby Row is a fictional town that does not exist yet. A group of families has come up the Selby River. They need a place to build. Your team is their planning group. You will study four sites. You will pick one. Then you will tell the families why.
Here are the four sites.
Site 1, River Flat. Wide flat land right beside the river. Boats can land easily. The land floods most springs.
Site 2, High Bluff. High ground above the river. It never floods. Water is 90 feet down, so wells must be deep and hard to dig.
Site 3, Cold Spring. A spring runs out of the hillside all year. The water is clean and cold. The flat land there is small. The river is half a mile away.
Site 4, Creek Mouth. The place where Otter Creek runs into the river. Boats can land here too. The ground is soft and marshy, and mosquitoes are thick in summer.
Your team must follow these rules.
- Pick only one site.
- Draw your map on one large sheet of paper.
- Label five things on your map: the water your town will drink, the homes, the fields, the road, and the line where the river floods.
- Write a recommendation. Give three reasons for your choice.
- Name one problem your site has. Tell how your town would handle it.
- Read your recommendation at the founders' meeting.
You will turn in two things. The first is your labeled map poster. The second is your written recommendation. You will read that recommendation to the founders' meeting, which your classmates will play.
Milestones
- Session 1 (Study the four sites): Read all four site cards with your team. Fill in the site chart. Write one good thing and one hard thing for each site. Output: a site chart with notes on all four sites.
- Session 2 (Pick a site and draft the map): Vote as a team and pick one site. Draw a draft map on the valley outline. Add all five labels. Output: a draft map with five labels.
- Session 3 (Write the recommendation): Write your recommendation. Start with your choice. Give three reasons. Then name the problem your site has and how the town would handle it. Output: a written draft, checked by one other team.
- Session 4 (Finish and present): Finish your poster in color. Read your recommendation at the founders' meeting. Answer two questions from the other teams. Output: the final poster and the presentation.
From Water for Schools (waterforschools.org). This material is in the public domain (CC0) and may be copied, edited, and shared freely.
Rubric
| Criterion | Emerging | Developing | Proficient | Advanced |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Site choice and reasons | Names a site with no reasons, or reasons unrelated to water | Names a site with one reason drawn from the site card | Names one site and gives three reasons, at least two of them about water | Names one site, gives three clear reasons about water and land, and explains why the other three sites were rejected |
| Map and the five labels | Map is unfinished or has fewer than three labels | Map has three or four of the five labels | Map is complete with all five labels placed correctly | Map has all five labels placed correctly, plus a scale bar or a compass rose that helps a reader use it |
| Handling the site problem | No problem is named | Names a problem but offers no way to handle it | Names the site problem and gives one workable way the town would handle it | Names the site problem, gives a workable way to handle it, and says what the town would do if that first plan failed |
| Presentation at the meeting | Recommendation is not read, or cannot be followed | Recommendation is read but reasons are hard to follow | Recommendation is read clearly and the three reasons are easy to follow | Recommendation is read clearly, the reasons are easy to follow, and the team answers both questions using the map |
Differentiation
Support
Give these teams a site chart with the good things already listed for all four sites, so their work is to add the hard things and then choose. Provide a map outline with the river, the creek, and the flood line already drawn, and give five label cards the team places and tapes down before writing anything.
Extension
Ask a team to add a second map showing the same town fifty years later, marking one change the settlers would have made to the land, such as a levee, a dug well, a mill dam, or a drained marsh. The team then adds two sentences to the recommendation about what that change would cost the town.
ELL supports
Pre-teach site, spring, bluff, and flood with a sketch and a hand gesture for each, and put the home-language word on the card. Allow the recommendation to follow a frame: "Our team picks ___. The first reason is ___. The second reason is ___. The third reason is ___. One problem is ___, and we would ___."
Extensions
Have students find out why their own town or city was built where it stands, using a local history page or a library book, and mark on a map whether water was part of the reason. Many older towns sit at a ford, a mill site, a spring, or a harbor, and students can compare what they find with the four fictional sites in this project.