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Reading passage Grade 5 Social Studies & Civics

Acequias: How Communities Share Mountain Stream Water

A grade 5 informational passage on acequia irrigation communities, explaining the mayordomo's role and the shared rules dividing a limited mountain water supply fairly.

Objectives

  1. Students will explain how a community's culture shapes the way it manages a shared water supply.
  2. Students will identify one benefit and one cost of following a shared water-sharing rule.

Vocabulary

Key words: acequia, mayordomo, irrigation

Teacher overview

In parts of the American Southwest, mountain snow is often the only reliable source of water for growing crops in an otherwise dry landscape. This passage introduces students to the acequia, a community-built and community-managed irrigation ditch, and to the customs that have grown up around sharing a limited mountain water supply fairly among many families. It gives students a concrete example of how a community's culture and its physical environment shape one another, along with a clear case for weighing the benefits and costs of following a shared rule.

The passage works well as a bridge between a unit on the water cycle or watersheds and a unit on how communities govern shared resources, since an acequia depends on both.

Acequias: How Communities Share Mountain Stream Water — Grade 5 Social Studies & Civics
Name: ____________________________ Date: ______________

Passage

Sharing the Mountain's Water

High in the mountains of the Southwest, snow piles up all winter. In spring, the snow melts. That water has to go somewhere. For hundreds of years, communities in the valleys below have found ways to guide it toward their fields.

One old way is called an acequia. An acequia is a ditch that a community digs by hand. It carries water away from a stream or river. It sends that water out across nearby farmland. Building an acequia takes many hands. Keeping it running takes many hands too. Acequia communities built a set of shared customs for this work. Parents passed these customs down to their kids. The customs decide how the water gets split among everyone who needs it.

Most acequia communities have a leader called the mayordomo. In English, that name is sometimes said as "ditch boss." The community picks its own mayordomo. No one from outside picks this person. The job carries real weight. The mayordomo sets a watering schedule. Each family gets one day and time to open a small gate. That gate lets water flow onto their own field. A family cannot just take water whenever it wants. Taking a turn out of order could leave a neighbor's crops dry during a hot week.

Every spring, before the growing season begins, acequia communities hold what they call a ditch cleaning. Families gather together, sometimes for a whole day. They clear fallen branches, dirt, and weeds out of the ditch. Then water can flow freely again. No single family owns the ditch alone. So no single family cleans it alone either. The work, like the water itself, is shared.

Acequia communities show something important about how people live with the land around them. The land only offers so much water, especially in a place where rain is scarce. So the community built rules to share it fairly. The mayordomo's schedule is one rule. The shared cleaning day is another. Many of these communities still follow acequia customs today. They mix old ways with modern life. But the main idea stays the same: water that belongs to everyone works best when everyone follows the same rules.

Questions

  1. What natural process fills the mountain streams that acequia communities depend on?
  2. What is an acequia, and what job does it do for a community?
  3. What is a mayordomo? Describe that person's main job, based on the passage.
  4. A family cannot water its field whenever it wants under the mayordomo's schedule. Name one cost of this rule for a family, and one benefit the whole community gets in return.
  5. How does the passage show that the acequia community's customs grew out of its dry mountain environment? Use one detail from the passage to support your answer.
  6. Why do you think acequia communities have kept similar water-sharing customs for such a long time?
  7. Compare the acequia's watering schedule to a rule you follow at home or school for sharing something limited, such as computer time or a family car. What is similar about the two situations?

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: Melting mountain snow. The passage states that winter snow builds up on the peaks and melts in spring, providing the water that flows into streams below.
  2. Answer: An acequia is a community-dug irrigation ditch that carries stream water out to nearby farmland, giving families a way to water crops in a dry landscape.
  3. Answer: A mayordomo, or "ditch boss," is a community-chosen leader who sets the watering schedule. The schedule gives each family a specific day and time to open its gate, so no family takes water out of turn and leaves a neighbor's crops dry.
  4. Answer: The cost is that a family must wait for its assigned day and time rather than watering whenever it wants, even during a dry week. The benefit is that every family, including that same one, is guaranteed a fair turn instead of risking running out if a neighbor took more than their share.
  5. Answer: Accept any answer citing that the community built the mayordomo role and the shared watering schedule specifically because water was limited in a dry mountain environment, showing the culture adapted its rules to fit what the land could actually provide.
  6. Answer: Answers will vary. A strong response notes that a system passed down for generations that keeps water sharing fair and prevents conflict between neighbors would give a community good reason to keep following it, especially since the underlying problem, limited water in a dry place, has not gone away.
  7. Answer: Answers will vary but should draw a clear parallel between a limited resource (water, computer time, a car) and a shared schedule or rule (a watering day, a sign-up sheet, a set schedule) that lets everyone get a fair turn instead of the resource going to whoever grabs it first.

Differentiation

Support (below grade level)

Read the passage aloud in two chunks (the acequia and mayordomo paragraphs, then the ditch-cleaning and conclusion paragraphs), pausing to check the meaning of acequia and mayordomo after each chunk. Provide a simple graphic showing a mountain, melting snow, a ditch, and a field with arrows, and let students point to each part while answering questions 1 and 2.

Extension (above grade level)

Ask students to reason, using only the passage and not outside sources, about what might happen to an acequia community during an especially dry year when the mountain snow is lighter than usual, and to propose one additional rule the community might need beyond the ones already described.

ELL supports

Pre-teach acequia, mayordomo, and irrigation with the graphic described in Support, plus a photograph or drawing of an irrigation ditch if available. Allow students to answer question 7 by drawing a simple comparison chart (two columns: "Acequia rule" and "My rule") instead of writing full sentences.