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Reading passage Grade 5 Social Studies & Civics

Under Maynard Street: How Ellard Carries Used Water Away

A grade 5 passage about the sewer pipes beneath a fictional town and the keep-it-clear rule its council passed after a clog, with comprehension questions and a key.

Objectives

  1. Students will describe the job of a town's sewer system and treatment plant.
  2. Students will explain how a town council developed a rule to solve a public problem.
  3. Students will quote the passage accurately to support an answer.

Vocabulary

Public works
The city department that builds and takes care of shared things everyone uses, like streets, water pipes, and sewers. Many water careers are part of public works.

Also: sewer, council, clog

Teacher overview

Water that goes down a drain leaves the house through pipes that residents rarely see. This passage follows the used water of the fictional town of Ellard through the sewer pipes under its streets to the treatment plant, and then tells the story of a clog that led the town council to pass a new rule. It works well in a unit on public services or local government, because it shows a council noticing a problem, hearing from residents, and writing a policy in response.

Under Maynard Street: How Ellard Carries Used Water Away — Grade 5 Social Studies & Civics
Name: ____________________________ Date: ______________

Passage

Under every street in the town of Ellard, two kinds of pipes do two different jobs. One set brings clean water to sinks, tubs, and fountains. The other set carries used water away after it goes down a drain or a toilet. That second set is called the sanitary sewer, and hardly anyone thinks about it, because it works quietly underground.

The sewer pipes under Ellard tilt gently downhill, block after block. Used water from every home joins bigger and bigger pipes, the way small streams join a river. The flow ends at the treatment plant at the low end of town. There, workers and machines clean the water in stages, removing solids and grime, until the water is safe to return to the river. The plant runs all day and all night, every day of the year.

The public works crews of Ellard take care of the pipes. They roll a small camera on wheels through the sewers to look for cracks, roots, and buildups. For years the work was quiet. Then one cold morning, the sewer under Maynard Street clogged, and used water backed up into three basements. The crews dug out the pipe and found the cause: a stiff lump of cooking grease, tangled with wet wipes that never broke apart in the water. Grease poured down kitchen drains had hardened inside the pipe, and the wipes had snagged on it like a net.

The families on Maynard Street brought the problem to the town council. The council held a public meeting, and the head of public works explained what the crews had found. Residents shared ideas, and the council wrote a new rule called the keep-it-clear rule: no grease and no wipes down any drain in Ellard. The town mailed a flyer to every home, and stickers for kitchen sinks reminded everyone that grease belongs in a can in the trash.

Every household in Ellard pays a small sewer charge with its water bill. That money pays for the crews, the cameras, and the treatment plant. Since the rule passed, the crews have found fewer buildups, and no basement on Maynard Street has flooded again.

Questions

  1. What are the two kinds of pipes under Ellard's streets, and what job does each one do?
  2. Quote the sentence that tells what the crews found when they dug out the pipe under Maynard Street.
  3. Where does Ellard's used water end up, and what happens to it there?
  4. Why did the council write a new rule instead of only fixing the clogged pipe? Use a detail from the passage.
  5. Quote the sentence that explains what the sewer charge pays for.
  6. List, in order, the steps the town took from the day of the clog to the day the rule reached every home.
  7. The passage says the sewer "works quietly underground" and hardly anyone thinks about it. Why can that be a problem for a town? Use your own reasoning and one detail from the passage.

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: One set of pipes brings clean water to sinks, tubs, and fountains, and the other set, the sanitary sewer, carries used water away after it goes down a drain or toilet, as the first paragraph states.
  2. Answer: "The crews dug out the pipe and found the cause: a stiff lump of cooking grease, tangled with wet wipes that never broke apart in the water." Accept an accurate quotation of this sentence.
  3. Answer: It flows to the treatment plant at the low end of town, where workers and machines clean it in stages until it is safe to return to the river.
  4. Answer: Fixing the pipe solved one clog, but grease and wipes from many kitchens caused it, so only a town-wide rule could stop the next clog from forming; the council acted after hearing what the crews had found.
  5. Answer: "That money pays for the crews, the cameras, and the treatment plant." Accept an accurate quotation of this sentence.
  6. Answer: The clog backed up three basements; crews dug out the pipe and found the cause; families brought the problem to the council; the council held a public meeting where public works explained and residents shared ideas; the council passed the keep-it-clear rule; the town mailed flyers and gave out sink stickers.
  7. Answer: Answers will vary. Strong answers note that people may not protect a system they never think about, such as pouring grease down drains without realizing it hardens in the pipes, so problems build unseen until basements flood.

Differentiation

Support

Provide a five-box flow strip, from drain to river, that students fill in while reading the second paragraph, and let them use it to answer question 3. Read the third paragraph aloud before students attempt question 2.

Extension

Ask students to design the sink sticker described in the passage, with a short slogan and one picture, and write two sentences explaining how their design would remind a busy cook about the rule.

ELL supports

Pre-teach sewer, clog, and council with quick sketches: a pipe under a street, a blocked pipe, and a table of people making a decision. Allow quotations for questions 2 and 5 to be copied and underlined, and allow question 6 to be a numbered list of short phrases.

Extensions

Invite students to find out what their own town or city asks residents to keep out of drains, using a utility mailer or the town website with a family member, and compare that list with Ellard's keep-it-clear rule.