Water for Schools
Menu

Reading passage Grade 5 Social Studies & Civics

The Shared Aquifer of Coyote Wells: A Groundwater Story

A grade 5 passage about a fictional dry town that shares one underground aquifer and makes an agreement to keep every family's well from running dry, with questions.

Objectives

  1. Students will explain how a town depends on a shared underground aquifer for water.
  2. Students will infer why an agreement to limit pumping helps a community adapt to a dry place.

Vocabulary

Aquifer
An aquifer is an underground layer of rock, sand, or gravel that holds water in the tiny spaces between its grains. Wells reach down into aquifers to bring water up to the surface.
Groundwater
Groundwater is water that has soaked into the ground and fills the spaces between soil particles and cracks in rock underground. It is a large underground source of fresh water that wells and springs draw from.

Also: well, agreement, shared resource

Teacher overview

This passage introduces groundwater through the story of Coyote Wells, a fictional dry town with no river. Families there draw water from wells that reach a shared aquifer, water stored in sand and rock underground. When heavy pumping dried up some wells, the town had to work out a fair way to share what lay beneath them all. Teachers can use the story to show how communities adapt to a dry environment and how people govern a resource that no single family owns alone.

The Shared Aquifer of Coyote Wells: A Groundwater Story — Grade 5 Social Studies & Civics
Name: ____________________________ Date: ______________

Passage

Coyote Wells is a small town in a dry, dusty valley. No river runs through it. When you look around, you see hills, cactus, and a wide, hot sky. Yet people have lived in Coyote Wells for a long time. Their secret is under the ground.

Below the valley lies an aquifer. An aquifer is a layer of sand and rock that holds water in its tiny spaces, like water soaking a sponge. Rain and melting snow trickle down over many years and fill it. To reach that water, each family drills a well, a deep, narrow hole, and pumps the water up to the surface.

For years, every family pumped as much as it wanted. Then some families noticed their wells were running dry. The deepest, strongest pumps were pulling up so much water that the level in the aquifer dropped. Because everyone's well reached into the same aquifer, one family's heavy pumping lowered the water for its neighbors too.

The people of Coyote Wells came together to talk. They understood, at last, that they did not have many separate supplies. They shared one. If a few families took too much, the whole town could run short.

So they made an agreement. In the driest months, each family would limit how much water it pumped. No one could run a pump day and night just to keep a green lawn. The families also agreed to fix leaks quickly and to report a well that seemed to be failing. It was not a law from far away. It was a promise the neighbors made to one another.

The agreement changed life in Coyote Wells. The wells stopped running dry, even in dry years. By adapting to their dry valley and sharing the water beneath it fairly, the people of Coyote Wells found a way to keep their town alive.

Questions

  1. Where does the town of Coyote Wells get its water, since there is no river?
  2. According to the passage, what is an aquifer?
  3. Why did some families' wells run dry when neighbors pumped a lot of water? Use the passage to explain.
  4. What did the families of Coyote Wells agree to do in the driest months?
  5. Explain one way the story shows people adapting to a dry place.
  6. Why might an agreement to limit pumping be fairer than letting each family pump all it wants? Support your answer with the text.

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: From wells that reach an aquifer underground. The passage says each family drills a well and pumps water up from the aquifer below the valley.
  2. Answer: A layer of sand and rock that holds water in its tiny spaces, filled slowly by rain and melting snow, as the passage explains.
  3. Answer: Because every well reached into the same aquifer, so one family's heavy pumping lowered the water level for its neighbors too. This is stated in the third paragraph.
  4. Answer: Each family agreed to limit how much water it pumped, not to run pumps day and night for a lawn, to fix leaks quickly, and to report a failing well.
  5. Answer: Sample response. The people live in a valley with no river and depend on underground water, and they changed how much they pumped to fit the dry conditions, which shows them adapting to their environment.
  6. Answer: Because the families share one supply, so if a few take too much the whole town runs short. Limiting pumping protects everyone's water, which the passage supports by saying "they shared one" and one family's pumping "lowered the water for its neighbors too."

Differentiation

Support

Read the passage aloud first and provide a simple cross-section drawing of the valley showing the aquifer below and several wells reaching into it. Allow students to answer questions 1, 2, and 4 with short phrases or by pointing to the drawing.

Extension

Ask students to write a short "neighbor agreement" of their own for Coyote Wells, listing three fair rules for sharing the aquifer, and to explain why each rule helps the whole town.

ELL supports

Pre-teach "aquifer," "well," and "agreement" with images: a sponge holding water for the aquifer, a deep straw for a well, and two people shaking hands for an agreement. Provide sentence frames: "The wells ran dry because ___," and "The families agreed to ___."