Water for Schools
Menu

Debate kit Grade 9 Social Studies & Civics

Should Bramblecote Permit the Highfern Aquifer Bottling Plant?

A two-session grade 9 debate kit on a fictional town's twenty-year groundwater withdrawal permit, with a two-sided evidence file and a written case brief.

Objectives

  1. Students will compare a proposed groundwater withdrawal to the estimated recharge of the aquifer.
  2. Students will build and deliver a case supported by cited evidence from a shared file.
  3. Students will rebut the strongest point made by the opposing team rather than its weakest.

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.
Recharge
Recharge is water soaking down through the ground to refill an aquifer, the way rain refills an underground sponge. Aquifers stay healthy only if recharge keeps up with pumping.
Drawdown
Drawdown is how far the water level in a well drops when a pump pulls water out. The harder and longer you pump, the bigger the drawdown gets.
Monitoring well
A monitoring well is a well drilled specifically to check on groundwater, not to supply drinking water. Scientists use monitoring wells to measure how high the water table is and to test for pollution before it can spread.

Also: withdrawal permit

Teacher overview

Groundwater permits are difficult decisions because the water cannot be seen directly and the commitment runs for decades. A town board must judge how much an aquifer can give up using estimates, and the permit it signs may outlast everyone on the board. This kit runs as a two-team debate before a student town board, with timed constructive speeches, cross-examination, and board questions. The resolution is genuinely contested, because the fictional town gains revenue and jobs while giving up control of a shared water supply for twenty years.

Should Bramblecote Permit the Highfern Aquifer Bottling Plant? — Grade 9 Social Studies & Civics
Name: ____________________________ Date: ______________

Resolution & Background

Resolution: The Bramblecote town board should grant Straithe Springs a twenty-year permit to withdraw up to 0.35 million gallons of water per day from the Highfern Aquifer.

Background. Bramblecote, Straithe Springs, and every figure in this kit are fictional. They were written for this debate and are not records of any real place or company.

The town of Bramblecote has about 4,800 residents. It sits above the Highfern Aquifer, a layer of sand and gravel that holds groundwater. Bramblecote has no reservoir and no river intake. Every home, the school, and the small businesses on Main Street draw from wells in that aquifer. Most homes also return water to the ground through septic systems.

Straithe Springs is a bottling company. It has asked the town board for a permit to drill two production wells and build a plant on a 40-acre site. The permit would allow the company to withdraw up to 0.35 million gallons per day for twenty years. The company would pay the town a yearly fee and would hire local workers.

Two national figures help students judge the size of the request. Per-person water use at home in the United States is commonly cited at 80 to 100 gallons per day, according to the USGS Water Science School. The average US household uses about 300 gallons per day, according to EPA WaterSense. A withdrawal of 350,000 gallons per day is therefore close to the daily home use of 3,500 to 4,375 people, which is close to the number of people who live in the fictional town.

Roles. Three students argue for the permit and three argue against it. One student moderates and runs the timer. Two students judge and score with the rubric. The rest of the class serves as the town board and must ask at least one question each, written on an index card and read aloud during the board period.

Format. Session 1 is preparation. Each debater reads the evidence file, chooses three points, and writes a one-page case brief with a claim and cited evidence. Session 2 is the debate: a six-minute constructive speech from each side, three minutes of cross-examination each way, a ten-minute board question period, and a three-minute closing from each side. The judges then score and announce a decision with reasons.

Evidence File

Every source below is fictional unless it is named as USGS or EPA. Students must cite the source by name when they use a point.

Case for granting the permit

  1. Town revenue. The company would pay the town $210,000 each year. The Bramblecote finance office reports that the town's whole annual budget is $1,150,000, so the fee is close to one-fifth of what the town spends. Source: fictional Bramblecote finance office memo.
  2. Jobs. The company's filing promises 34 full-time jobs at an average wage of $47,000 a year. Bramblecote has no other employer with more than twenty workers. Source: fictional Straithe Springs permit application.
  3. Monitoring conditions. The draft permit makes the company pay for six monitoring wells and file water level readings every month. If the water level falls more than 4 feet below its ten-year average, the permit cuts the allowed withdrawal in half until the level recovers. Source: fictional draft permit, section 4.
  4. Recharge estimate. A consulting hydrogeologist hired by the town estimates that rain and snowmelt add about 2.9 million gallons per day to the Highfern Aquifer in an average year. The requested withdrawal is about one-eighth of that. Source: fictional consulting hydrogeologist report to the town board.
  5. Comparison to household use. Using the EPA WaterSense figure of about 300 gallons per household per day, the fictional town's own homes draw far less water each day than the aquifer receives each day in an average year. Supporters argue the aquifer has room for both. Source: EPA WaterSense.

Case against granting the permit

  1. Wells are already dropping. Town records show that 22 household wells on the north side of Bramblecote have dropped an average of 6 feet over the past eight years, before any bottling plant was proposed. Source: fictional Bramblecote well survey.
  2. Dry years change the math. In the two driest years on record, the same hydrogeologist estimated recharge at only 1.4 million gallons per day. In a year like that, the requested withdrawal would be one-quarter of everything the aquifer receives. Source: fictional consulting hydrogeologist report, appendix B.
  3. The town cannot easily undo the decision. The draft permit lets the board reduce the withdrawal only when the 4-foot trigger is met. For any other reason, the town cannot revoke the permit before 2046. Source: fictional draft permit, section 9.
  4. The water does not come back. Water used in Bramblecote homes soaks back into the ground through septic systems. Bottled water leaves the basin on a truck and never returns to the Highfern Aquifer. Source: fictional Bramblecote board hearing transcript.
  5. Jobs may not go to residents. A town survey found that 19 of the 34 promised jobs require machine operation experience that few residents have. The other 15 pay less than the advertised average. Source: fictional Bramblecote employment survey.
  6. Precedent. The town attorney warns that two other companies have already asked about nearby sites. Granting this permit would make it harder for the board to deny the next application on the same facts. Source: fictional Bramblecote town attorney memo.

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

Rubric

Judges score each debater on the five criteria below. The scenario is fictional, so credit belongs to the use of the evidence rather than to outside knowledge.

Criterion Emerging Developing Proficient Advanced
Use of evidence Cites no points from the file, or cites them without naming a source Cites points but names sources inconsistently Cites at least three points and names the source for each Cites at least three points, names each source, and explains why that source is reliable or limited
Reasoning States a position without connecting it to any evidence Connects one point to the claim Connects each cited point to the claim in a clear chain Connects each point to the claim and shows how the points reinforce one another
Rebuttal Does not respond to the other side Responds to a minor point the other side made Responds directly to the other side's strongest point Responds to the strongest point and shows why that point does not decide the resolution
Case brief Brief is missing or has no clear claim Brief has a claim but little cited support Brief states a claim and supports it with cited evidence from the file Brief does the above and states the condition under which the writer would change position
Delivery and format Runs far over or under time and is hard to follow Meets time but the order of ideas is unclear Meets time with a clear opening, body, and closing Meets time, is clearly organized, and answers cross-examination without losing the thread

Differentiation

Support

Give students in the fictional Bramblecote debate a case brief template with the three claim slots already labeled and a checklist of the points available on their side. Allow them to read their constructive speech from a script, and provide a one-page glossary card for the terms used in the evidence file.

Extension

Ask students to write the amended permit the fictional Bramblecote board would adopt if it granted the request while answering three objections from the opposing file. The amendment must set a numeric trigger, name who measures it, and state what happens in a year when recharge falls to the dry-year estimate.

ELL supports

Pre-teach "aquifer," "recharge," "withdrawal," and "drawdown" with a labeled cross-section of the fictional Highfern Aquifer showing wells, the water table, and rain soaking in. Provide sentence frames for cross-examination: "Your point about ___ assumes ___. What happens if ___?" Allow the case brief to be written in bullet form.

Extensions

Students find out whether their own state requires a permit for a large groundwater withdrawal, using only the state environmental agency's published permit pages, and write one paragraph comparing that threshold to the fictional 0.35 million gallons per day requested in Bramblecote. A second option is to rerun the debate with the term shortened to five years and ask judges whether the shorter term changes their decision.