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Lesson plan Grade 9 Social Studies & Civics

Crowhaven's Storm Sewer Map: Where Past Spending Went

A grade 9 lesson in which students shade two district maps of a fictional city and find that the districts with the oldest storm sewers received the least investment.

Objectives

  1. Students will convert district complaint counts into rates per 1,000 households.
  2. Students will compare capital spending per household across four districts of a city.
  3. Students will explain the spatial pattern the two shaded maps reveal and recommend a spending priority.

Vocabulary

Key words: capital spending, storm sewer, rate per 1,000, district, capital plan

Teacher overview

Cities publish capital plans that list what will be built and where, and those documents record, year after year, which neighborhoods got attention and which did not. This lesson gives students twenty years of that record for the fictional city of Crowhaven and asks them to put it beside the flooding complaints residents filed. The misconception to plan for is that a raw complaint count measures need: students will rank the fictional districts by the complaint column and place Lindrick above Feldon, when Lindrick has more than twice as many households and a much lower complaint rate. Building both maps, one shaded by rate and one shaded by dollars per household, is what makes the pattern visible and turns the lesson from arithmetic into a civic question about who the capital plan served.

Procedure

Hook (5 min): Project the district table for the fictional city of Crowhaven with only the household and complaint columns visible. Ask students to rank the four districts from worst flooding to least, and record the class ranking on the board without comment. Most classes will put Hascombe first and Lindrick second.

Reading the table and the map (10 min): Reveal the remaining columns and distribute the outline map of the four fictional districts. Walk the class through what each column measures and over what period. Ask two comprehension questions: which column covers five years and which covers twenty, and whether spending is listed as a total or per household.

Modeling the rate (7 min): Work one rate on the board using a district that does not appear on the handout, such as a fictional fifth district with 1,500 households and 45 complaints, giving 30 complaints per 1,000 households. Then work one spending figure the same way. Ask students to say the unit aloud with you, and check by show of hands whether students can state both units without looking. If fewer than three-quarters of the class can, work a second example before releasing the handout.

Handout work (18 min): Students complete items 1 through 10 of the Student Handout individually or in pairs, then shade two copies of the outline map, one by complaint rate and one by spending per household, using a four-band scale they choose and label themselves.

Pattern discussion (10 min): Groups hold their two shaded maps side by side. Ask what the two maps have in common and where they disagree. Push students to state the pattern in one sentence naming both variables, then ask what the map cannot tell them, which should surface land elevation, soil, the age of the housing stock, and which districts had residents who knew how to file a complaint at all.

Exit ticket (5 min): Students complete handout items 11 and 12 and turn in the sheet. Use item 12 to check whether students can hold a recommendation and a fair objection in the same answer.

Crowhaven's Storm Sewer Map: Where Past Spending Went — Grade 9 Social Studies & Civics
Name: ____________________________ Date: ______________

Student Handout

The city of Crowhaven, its four districts, and every figure below are fictional, written for this lesson.

Crowhaven's stormwater utility keeps two records. One counts the flooded-basement complaints residents filed in the last five years. The other lists the capital spending the city put into storm sewers in each district over the last twenty years.

District Households Median storm sewer age, years Complaints, last 5 years Capital spending, last 20 years
Pelbury 2,400 34 96 $1,200,000
Hascombe 1,800 71 288 $360,000
Lindrick 3,000 22 180 $2,400,000
Feldon 1,200 66 168 $180,000

Outline map: draw the city as a square split into four adjoining districts, with Pelbury in the northwest, Lindrick in the southwest, Hascombe in the northeast, and Feldon in the southeast. The river runs along the east edge of the city, beside Hascombe and Feldon, the two oldest districts.

  1. Find Pelbury's complaint rate in complaints per 1,000 households.
  2. Find Hascombe's complaint rate in complaints per 1,000 households.
  3. Find Lindrick's complaint rate in complaints per 1,000 households.
  4. Find Feldon's complaint rate in complaints per 1,000 households.
  5. Find Pelbury's capital spending per household.
  6. Find Hascombe's capital spending per household.
  7. Find Lindrick's capital spending per household.
  8. Find Feldon's capital spending per household.
  9. How many times greater is Feldon's complaint rate than Lindrick's? Round to the nearest tenth.
  10. Which district has both the oldest median storm sewer age and the highest complaint rate?
  11. Place your two shaded maps side by side. Describe in two or three sentences the pattern that appears when the complaint-rate map is compared with the spending map.
  12. Write the one-sentence recommendation you would give the Crowhaven council about which district's storm sewers to rebuild first, then name the strongest objection a resident of a different district could raise against it.

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: 40 complaints per 1,000 households.
    Divide 96 complaints by 2,400 households to get 0.04, then multiply by 1,000.
  2. Answer: 160 complaints per 1,000 households.
    Divide 288 complaints by 1,800 households to get 0.16, then multiply by 1,000.
  3. Answer: 60 complaints per 1,000 households.
    Divide 180 complaints by 3,000 households to get 0.06, then multiply by 1,000.
  4. Answer: 140 complaints per 1,000 households.
    Divide 168 complaints by 1,200 households to get 0.14, then multiply by 1,000.
  5. Answer: $500 per household.
    Divide $1,200,000 by 2,400 households in the fictional district.
  6. Answer: $200 per household.
    Divide $360,000 by 1,800 households.
  7. Answer: $800 per household.
    Divide $2,400,000 by 3,000 households.
  8. Answer: $150 per household.
    Divide $180,000 by 1,200 households.
  9. Answer: 2.3 times
    Divide 140 complaints per 1,000 households by 60, which gives 2.333 and rounds to 2.3. Point out that Lindrick recorded more complaints than Feldon in raw count, 180 against 168, yet its rate is well under half of Feldon's.
  10. Answer: Hascombe.
    Hascombe has the oldest median storm sewer age at 71 years and the highest complaint rate at 160 per 1,000 households.
  11. Answer: The two maps run opposite each other. The districts shaded darkest for complaints, Hascombe and Feldon, are shaded lightest for spending, at $200 and $150 per household, while Lindrick and Pelbury show the reverse at $800 and $500 per household with rates of 60 and 40 complaints per 1,000. Accept any answer that names both variables and states the inverse relationship.
  12. Answer: Accept any recommendation defended with a number and paired with a genuine objection. A strong answer names Hascombe first, citing the 71-year median pipe age, the 160 complaints per 1,000 households, and the $200 per household spent there over twenty years. A strong objection notes that Lindrick holds 3,000 households, the most in the fictional city, so a large share of Crowhaven residents would wait; that Feldon's rate of 140 is close enough to Hascombe's to argue for splitting the work; or that complaint counts undercount households that never filed.

Differentiation

Support

Give students the rate formula written out with the units labeled, and complete item 1 with them so the fictional first district serves as the worked example. Provide the two outline maps with the four shading bands already chosen and printed in the legend, so students shade rather than design the scale.

Extension

Ask students to compute what Crowhaven would have had to spend in Hascombe over the last twenty years to match Lindrick's dollars per household, and to state that figure as a total for the fictional district. Students then write a short paragraph on whether equal dollars per household would have been the right standard, or whether pipe age should have driven the plan instead.

ELL supports

Pre-teach "capital spending," "storm sewer," "complaint rate," and "district" with a labeled sketch of a street showing a storm drain, a pipe, and a flooded basement. Provide a two-column note frame for item 11 with the headers "What the complaint map shows" and "What the spending map shows," and give sentence frames for item 12: "The council should rebuild ___ first because ___," and "A resident of ___ could object that ___."

Extensions

Students find their own city or county's published capital improvement plan and locate one stormwater project in it, then write a paragraph naming the neighborhood, the amount, and the year, and comparing that project to the pattern they found in the fictional city of Crowhaven. A second option is to draft the two-minute public comment a Hascombe resident would deliver at a Crowhaven budget hearing, using at least two figures from the handout.