Classroom activity Grade 6 Social Studies & Civics

Sharing the Amsel River: A Water Allocation Negotiation Game

A grade 6 role-play activity where three groups negotiate how to divide a river's flow between farms, a city, and required environmental flow across a drought season.

Grade: Grade 6
Subject: Social Studies & Civics
Material: Classroom activity
Time: 50 min
Prep: Low prep
Materials: 110 tokens or poker chips (representing units of river flow), Role cards for Upton Farms, Lowbridge City, and the River Conservation Group, A round chart on the board to record each round's totals, Timer

Standards

D2.Civ.9.6-8 C3 Framework

Compare deliberative processes used by a wide variety of groups in various settings.

How this material aligns: Across three rounds, groups run a stakeholder negotiation to allocate the river's flow, deliberating and adjusting their approach as the available flow changes, the kind of deliberative process this standard addresses.

All materials for D2.Civ.9.6-8 →

D2.Eco.2.6-8 C3 Framework

Evaluate alternative approaches or solutions to current economic issues in terms of benefits and costs for different groups and society as a whole.

How this material aligns: Round 2's forced shortage requires groups to evaluate which allocation approach best balances costs and benefits for farms, the city, and the river itself.

All materials for D2.Eco.2.6-8 →

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This material is in the public domain (CC0) and may be copied, edited, and shared freely, without attribution. Updated 2026-07-16.

Objectives

Students will negotiate an allocation of a shared, limited resource among competing needs.
Students will explain why an environmental flow requirement matters even though it does not supply drinking water or crops directly.

Vocabulary

Watershed: A watershed is all the land where rain that falls will drain to the same stream, river, or lake. Everyone lives in a watershed, no matter how far from the water they live.

Also: allocation, upstream, downstream, environmental flow

Teacher overview

This is a small-group negotiation game for a whole class, using the fictional Amsel River as a shared resource with three competing claims on its water. Upton Farms sits upstream and needs irrigation water for crops, Lowbridge City sits downstream and needs water for its residents, and a required environmental flow must stay in the river itself for fish and wildlife. Each round models how a real river behaves: every group's minimum need stays the same, but the total amount of water available changes with the season, so the class has to decide which group gets less in a dry month and which gets more in a wet one.

Activity Directions

Before class, label three areas of the room "Upton Farms," "Lowbridge City," and "River Conservation Group." At the start of class, explain that the fictional Amsel River flows from Upton Farms, upstream, down to Lowbridge City, and that all three groups depend on the same river.
Explain the baseline scenario: suppose the Amsel River provides 100 units of flow in a normal month. Upton Farms needs a minimum of 40 units to keep its crops alive, Lowbridge City needs a minimum of 45 units for its residents, and state rules require a minimum environmental flow of 15 units to stay in the river for fish and wildlife. Point out that these three minimums add up to exactly 100 units, the full normal flow.
Divide the class into three groups and assign each group one role: Upton Farms, Lowbridge City, or River Conservation Group. Give each group its role card, which lists its minimum need and one additional detail (Upton Farms grows a crop that fails below its minimum; Lowbridge City's hospital needs reliable water pressure; the Conservation Group protects a fish species that needs the minimum flow to survive).
Round 1 (5 min): Announce that this month's flow is the normal 100 units. Groups confirm on the board that each receives its minimum (40, 45, and 15 units), since the total exactly matches what is available. This round shows the baseline before conditions change.
Round 2 (12 min): Announce a heat wave has reduced the river's flow to 85 units this month, 15 units short of everyone's combined minimum needs. Each group has one minute to present its case for why its allocation should not be cut. Then, as a class, negotiate how to divide the 85 available units among the three groups, recording the final numbers on the board. Every proposal must add up to no more than 85 total units before the class can agree to it.
Round 3 (10 min): Announce that heavy rain has raised the river's flow to 110 units this month, 10 units more than the original combined minimum needs. Negotiate as a class how to use the extra 10 units: give them all to one group, split them evenly, or add them entirely to the environmental flow. Record the final agreed allocation on the board.
Debrief (10 min): Hold a short class discussion using the two debrief questions below, then collect each group's final Round 2 and Round 3 numbers as their exit ticket.

Sharing the Amsel River: A Water Allocation Negotiation Game — Grade 6 Social Studies & Civics

Name: ____________________________ Date: ______________

Student Handout

Debrief questions. Answer both after Round 3, using the totals your class recorded on the board.

In Round 2, the Amsel River's flow dropped to 85 units, 15 fewer than the three groups' combined minimum needs of 100 units (40 units for Upton Farms, 45 units for Lowbridge City, and 15 units of environmental flow). Which group's allocation did your class end up reducing, and what reason convinced the class?
Why might the environmental flow requirement of 15 units matter even though it does not directly supply drinking water or irrigate crops?

From Water for Schools (waterforschools.org). This material is in the public domain (CC0) and may be copied, edited, and shared freely.

Answer Key

Answer: Answers will vary depending on each class's negotiation.
A strong response names a specific group's reduced number and explains the reasoning the class used, such as protecting the hospital's minimum water pressure or protecting the fish species' survival threshold.
Answer: Answers will vary.
A strong response explains that a river left with too little water can harm fish and other wildlife, damage the health of the whole watershed over time, and reduce the water quality or quantity available to Upton Farms and Lowbridge City in future months.

Differentiation

Support (below grade level)

Provide each group with a simple number line marked 0 to 100 to physically move tokens along as they negotiate, and allow the Conservation Group's role card to include a sentence starter for their one-minute case ("Our fish need at least ___ units because ___.").

Extension (above grade level)

After Round 3, challenge groups to design a rule the city and state could adopt in advance, before the next drought, that would decide how any future shortage gets divided without a fresh negotiation each time, and have them explain why their rule is fair to all three groups.

ELL supports

Pre-teach "allocation," "upstream," and "downstream" with a simple diagram showing the river flowing from Upton Farms at the top to Lowbridge City at the bottom. Provide the role cards with the key numbers highlighted, and allow each group's one-minute case in Round 2 to be presented by pointing to numbers on their card rather than speaking from memory.