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Reading passage Grade 4 Social Studies & Civics

The Snow That Fills the Faucets: Mountain Water in the West

A grade 4 geography passage on how western mountain snowpack becomes summer water for cities and farms, and how snow surveyors measure it, with an answer key.

Objectives

  1. Students will trace the path of mountain snow from winter peak to summer faucet.
  2. Students will explain how snow surveyor measurements guide a city's summer water choices.

Vocabulary

Snowpack
The snow that piles up in the mountains over the winter. As it melts in spring and summer, it acts like a giant water tank feeding rivers and reservoirs.
Reservoir
A human-made lake, usually created by a dam, that stores water for later. Reservoirs supply cities and farms and help control floods.

Also: snow surveyor, meltwater

Teacher overview

This informational passage explains how water that comes out of a western faucet in July often began as January snow on a distant peak. It introduces the snowpack as natural storage, follows the melt into rivers and reservoirs, and shows the work of snow surveyors, whose winter measurements shape a city's summer plans. The passage fits a regions unit on the American West and offers a career connection without leaving the geography.

The Snow That Fills the Faucets: Mountain Water in the West — Grade 4 Social Studies & Civics
Name: ____________________________ Date: ______________

Passage

In much of the American West, summer is long and dry. Rain may stay away for weeks at a time. Yet cities and farms in the West use water all summer. Where does that water come from? Much of it starts as winter snow in the mountains.

High peaks catch storm after storm all winter. Snow piles deep and stays cold. The layers of snow that last through the winter are called the snowpack. The snowpack stores water the way a reservoir does: it holds the winter's storms until the water is needed later in the year.

When spring warms the peaks, the snow melts a little at a time. The meltwater trickles into creeks. Creeks join rivers, and rivers fill the reservoirs behind dams. All summer long, towns and farms draw on that stored melt. In many western valleys, the water in a July faucet fell as snow in January.

Because so much depends on the snow, people measure it. Workers called snow surveyors travel into the mountains in winter, often on skis or snowshoes. They stop at the same marked spots every year, called snow courses. At each spot, a surveyor pushes a hollow metal tube straight down through the snow. The tube pulls out a long plug of snow called a core. Weighing the core tells the surveyor how much water the snow really holds, because heavy, wet snow holds far more water than the same depth of light, fluffy snow.

The surveyors send their reports to water planners in the cities and farm districts. After a deep, heavy snowpack, planners can expect full rivers and full reservoirs. After a thin, dry snowpack, they start planning early for a hard summer. A city may ask families to water lawns less. Farmers may choose crops that need less water. Some towns fill their reservoirs as high as rules allow, saving every bit of the melt.

Snow does not fall evenly every year. Some winters bury the peaks, and some winters leave them nearly bare. That is why people across the West watch the mountains so closely. A dry city street in August and a snowy peak in February may seem far apart, yet one depends on the other.

Questions

  1. Where does much of the West's summer water begin?
  2. What is the snowpack? Use the passage in your answer.
  3. Describe the path meltwater takes from the peaks to a city, in order.
  4. What does a snow surveyor do at a snow course?
  5. Why does weighing the snow core tell a surveyor more than only measuring how deep the snow is?
  6. Name two things a city or a farmer might do after a thin, dry snowpack report.
  7. The passage says the water in a July faucet fell as snow in January. Explain what happens between January and July to make that true.

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: As winter snow in the mountains. The first paragraph says much of the West's summer water starts as winter snow in the mountains.
  2. Answer: The layers of snow that last through the winter on the peaks. The passage says the snowpack stores water the way a reservoir does, holding winter storms until the water is needed.
  3. Answer: The snow melts a little at a time, the meltwater trickles into creeks, creeks join rivers, and rivers fill the reservoirs behind dams, where towns and farms draw on it all summer.
  4. Answer: The surveyor pushes a hollow metal tube down through the snow at a marked spot, pulls out a core, and weighs it to learn how much water the snow holds.
  5. Answer: Because heavy, wet snow holds far more water than the same depth of light, fluffy snow. Depth alone could fool the surveyor, while the core's weight shows the real amount of water.
  6. Answer: Any two of: the city asks families to water lawns less, farmers choose crops that need less water, or towns fill their reservoirs as high as the rules allow.
  7. Answer: Between January and July the snowpack slowly melts, the meltwater runs through creeks and rivers into reservoirs, and the city draws that stored water into its pipes, so the January snow reaches a July faucet.

Differentiation

Support (below grade level)

Read the passage aloud once, then have students draw a four-step arrow chain, peak to creek to reservoir to faucet, before answering. Questions 1 through 4 make a fair reduced set.

Extension (above grade level)

Ask students to write a short paragraph predicting what problems a second thin-snow winter in a row might cause, using at least three details from the passage to support the prediction.

ELL supports

Pre-teach snowpack, meltwater, reservoir, and snow surveyor with a single mountain-to-city sketch labeled at each stop. Accept short-phrase answers for questions 1 through 4, and let question 3 be answered by numbering the sketch.

Extensions

Have students find the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada on a United States map and name two states where mountain snow likely feeds summer faucets. Students can then check where their own region's water is stored in winter, such as snow, lakes, or the ground.