Grade 10 Lesson plan
Aldenbury's Aquifer Storage and Recovery Wells
A 55-minute grade 10 lesson on storing treated water underground, where students calculate injected volume, recovery efficiency, and chloride in the recovered blend.
NGSS · High School (9–12)
HS-ESS3-4 Evaluate or refine a solution reducing human impact on natural systems
Evaluate or refine a technological solution that reduces impacts of human activities on natural systems.
Clarification statement: Examples of data on the impacts of human activities could include the quantities and types of pollutants released, changes to biomass and species diversity, or areal changes in land surface use (such as for urban development, agriculture and livestock, or surface mining). Examples for limiting future impacts could range from local efforts (such as reducing, reusing, and recycling resources) to large-scale geoengineering design solutions (such as altering global temperatures by making large changes to the atmosphere or ocean).
Why water teaches this standard well
Water pollution and its cleanup technologies sit squarely in this standard's examples of measured impacts and mitigation. Students can evaluate a real solution, an advanced treatment process, a green stormwater retrofit, a nutrient-reduction plan, and refine it using data on pollutant loads and ecosystem recovery.
Materials tagged with this code are written to the full standard , including its clarification statement , and each carries a written note explaining the alignment. See how we review materials.
70 materials aligned to HS-ESS3-4
Lesson plans
Grade 11 Lesson plan
Yarnbrook Farms' Salty Root Zone: A Salt Balance Lesson
A grade 11 lesson on why irrigation concentrates salt in soil, using a fictional farm water budget to find leaching fraction, drainage salinity, and salt load.
Grade 9 Lesson plan
Bickerstaff Lake Swim Advisory: Reading Bacteria Counts
A 50-minute grade 9 lesson where students summarize bacteria sample data from two fictional beaches and decide whether the county should post a swim advisory.
Grade 11 Lesson plan
Writing Vardenmill's Discharge Permit for Ockridge Creek
A 60-minute grade 11 careers lesson in which students act as a state permit writer, converting effluent limits to loads and testing them against a creek at low flow.
Grade 10 Lesson plan
Thornwood Commons Rain Garden: Sizing Green Infrastructure
A 55-minute grade 10 lesson where students use the rational method to find a parking lot's peak runoff, then size a rain garden to hold the first inch of storm runoff.
Grade 11 Lesson plan
Hartwell's Discharge Permit: The Clean Water Act on the Sindle River
A grade 11 lesson where students analyze a fictional wastewater discharge permit, connecting the Clean Water Act and secondary treatment to dissolved oxygen in a river.
Grade 11 Lesson plan
Rendon's Lead Service Lines: Corrosion Control and the Action Level
A grade 11 science lesson on why corrosive water leaches lead, how corrosion control coats pipes, and how the 90th-percentile action level drives replacement.
Grade 11 Lesson plan
Microplastics in the Tessel River: Counting Fibers at Steadmere
A grade 11 lesson pairing a salt-water density separation demonstration with effluent particle counts to estimate a plant's daily microplastic load and compare two fixes.
Grade 11 Lesson plan
Verrin Valley Irrigation: Crop Water Demand and Efficiency
A 50-minute grade 11 lesson computing a fictional farm's crop water need and comparing flood and drip irrigation efficiency to find the water saved.
Grade 12 Lesson plan
Green Infrastructure for the Ellersby Creek Watershed
A grade 12 lesson using the rational method to compare pre- and post-development runoff and to size a rain garden for a fictional campus roof's first flush.
Grade 12 Lesson plan
Granular Activated Carbon for PFAS at Fenwick Wells
A grade 12 science lesson where students size granular activated carbon treatment for a fictional PFAS-affected wellfield and evaluate ways to extend the carbon's life.
Grade 12 Lesson plan
Corrosion Control at Rothbury: pH, Alkalinity, and Lime Dosing
A 55-minute grade 12 lesson on corrosion control: students calculate lime feed rates and explain how raising pH and alkalinity keeps lead and copper out of tap water.
Grade 12 Lesson plan
Irrigation Efficiency and Water Savings in Verrand Valley
A 50-minute grade 12 science lesson where students convert irrigation depth to acre-feet and gallons and compare the water a fictional farm saves by switching to drip.
Grade 9 Lesson plan
Ferncliff's Lead Pipes: The Chemistry of Corrosion Control
A grade 9 lesson on how corrosion control chemistry keeps lead out of drinking water, using the Flint example and a fictional town's decision to evaluate the solution.
Grade 9 Lesson plan
Larkspur Lake Algae and Nutrients: A Grade 9 Ecology Lesson
A 50-minute grade 9 lesson where students trace nitrogen and phosphorus as both crop nutrients and lake pollutants, then evaluate cleanup steps for a fictional lake.
Grade 10 Lesson plan
Fernvale's PFAS Wells: Evaluating an Advanced Treatment Solution
A grade 10 lesson where students compare well test results to the federal PFAS limit and evaluate a proposed carbon-filter treatment upgrade.
Grade 11 Lesson plan
Sable Cove's Drought Plan: Reverse Osmosis and Its Energy Cost
A grade 11 lesson pairing the real Carlsbad desalination plant with a fictional coastal town's energy-cost comparison to teach reverse osmosis and drought trade-offs.
Grade 12 Lesson plan
Phosphorus Recovery via Struvite at Ashgrove Reclamation
A grade 12 lesson on struvite precipitation, where students calculate phosphorus loading and recovery at a fictional plant and treat a nutrient as a resource.
Worksheets
Grade 12 Worksheet
Wren Hollow: A Wet-Weather Month Against Secondary Treatment Limits
A grade 12 worksheet in which students audit a fictional plant's wet February against 7-day, 30-day and 85 percent removal limits, then trace storm loads downstream.
Grade 12 Worksheet
Marchbourne Creek Spill Response: Coordinator Field Math
Grade 12 worksheet using stream velocity, travel time, and the pounds formula to judge how a fertilizer spill affects a fictional town's drinking water intake.
Grade 9 Worksheet
Kestrelmoor Plating Rinse: Sizing a Neutralization Tank
A grade 9 worksheet sizing a pH neutralization tank for a fictional plating shop, covering detention time, tank geometry, caustic use, cost, and a permit check.
Grade 10 Worksheet
Kelbury Road Salt: Chloride Loading in Tarnwick Creek
Grade 10 students convert a winter's road salt into chloride mass, calculate stream loading in pounds per day, and judge whether a salt policy change would work.
Grade 10 Worksheet
Marrow Creek Reclamation Plant: BOD Removal and Activated Sludge
A grade 10 science worksheet set at the fictional Marrow Creek plant, where students compute BOD and TSS removal efficiency and check secondary-treatment compliance.
Grade 10 Worksheet
Saddleback Farms: Comparing Flood and Drip Irrigation Water Use
A grade 10 worksheet where students compute crop water demand and compare flood and drip irrigation efficiency for a fictional farm weighing a system switch.
Grade 10 Worksheet
Wexmoor River Oxygen Sag: Reading a Dissolved-Oxygen Profile
A grade 10 science worksheet where students read a dissolved-oxygen profile downstream of a discharge, find the sag point, and compare it to the fish threshold.
Grade 10 Worksheet
Yarrowton Orchard Irrigation: Tracking Soil Water and Crop Use
Grade 10 students run a seven-day soil water balance for an apple orchard, decide when to irrigate, and compare the water a drip and a sprinkler system would need.
Grade 11 Worksheet
Bewley Reclamation Plant: BOD and TSS Removal Efficiency
A grade 11 worksheet on a fictional wastewater plant, computing BOD and TSS removal efficiency and daily pollutant loading with the pounds formula.
Grade 11 Worksheet
Larkfield Commons Runoff: Rational Method and Bioretention Sizing
A grade 11 stormwater worksheet where students use the rational method to compare pre- and post-development runoff and size a bioretention cell for a fictional site.
Grade 12 Worksheet
Nitrification Stoichiometry and Alkalinity at Cawdry
A grade 12 science worksheet deriving oxygen demand and alkalinity destruction per gram of nitrogen from a balanced equation, then applying both to a plant's daily load.
Grade 12 Worksheet
Filter Loading and Backwash Rates at the Marrowbrook Plant
A grade 12 science worksheet using operator math to find filter loading and backwash rates at a fictional plant and check them against the turbidity standard.
Grade 12 Worksheet
Rational Method Runoff for a Thorncliff Development
A grade 12 science worksheet applying the rational method to a fictional parcel, comparing peak runoff before and after paving and sizing the detention it needs.
Grade 9 Worksheet
Ashvale Reclamation Plant: BOD Loading and Removal Efficiency
A grade 9 science worksheet using the pounds formula and removal-efficiency formula on a fictional plant's flow to judge how well it cleans wastewater.
Grade 9 Worksheet
Ellery Point's Combined Sewer: Overflow Volume and Tunnel Storage
A grade 9 worksheet where students calculate combined sewer overflow volumes for a fictional coastal town, size a storage tunnel, and compare it with green retrofits.
Grade 10 Worksheet
Copper Bend Lake: Nutrient Loading and Biological Nutrient Removal
A grade 10 worksheet where students calculate dissolved oxygen loss and phosphorus removal at a fictional lake facing nutrient pollution and algal blooms.
Grade 12 Worksheet
Chlorine Feed Rate and Detention Time at Blackstone Falls
A grade 12 worksheet using the pounds formula, the detention-time formula, and chlorine demand to size disinfection feed at a fictional treatment plant.
Math problem sets
Grade 10 Math problem set
Fallowbrook Reclamation: Solids Loading and Digester Detention
Ten linked grade 10 problems that follow solids from a primary clarifier through an anaerobic digester to dewatered cake, using the pounds formula and tank volumes.
Grade 11 Math problem set
Bramfield Water Recovery Plant: F:M Ratio and Solids Retention Time
A grade 11 problem set on activated sludge control: students compute BOD loading, an F:M ratio, solids retention time, and the wasting rate a ten-day target requires.
Grade 12 Math problem set
Dellacre Farm Irrigation Demand: Net, Gross, and Efficiency
A grade 12 problem set on irrigation water math: students convert crop needs to acre-feet, apply system efficiency to find gross demand, and size the delivery flow.
Grade 12 Math problem set
Primary Clarifier Detention and Overflow at Netherford
A grade 12 science problem set sizing a fictional primary clarifier: volume, detention time, surface overflow rate, BOD removal, and the pounds of BOD removed per day.
Grade 12 Math problem set
Sizing a Bioretention Cell at Redmarch Commons
A grade 12 science problem set that takes a redevelopment site from percent impervious to a treatment volume, a cell footprint, a drawdown time, and a solids load.
Reading passages
Grade 11 Reading passage
Counting Resistance Genes at the Rushmill Plant
A grade 11 passage and data table on how a fictional reclamation plant reduces antibiotic resistance genes, and why killing bacteria does not remove their DNA.
Grade 10 Reading passage
How the Elmscott Plant Turns Sewage into Water and Energy
A grade 10 science passage on wastewater treatment, tracing the stages a fictional reclamation plant uses to clean sewage and recover energy from sludge.
Grade 10 Reading passage
Cleaning Water to Drink Again: The Science of Potable Reuse
A grade 10 reading passage on potable water reuse, tracing the microfiltration, reverse osmosis, and UV barriers that turn treated wastewater into drinking water.
Grade 10 Reading passage
Why PFAS Are Called Forever Chemicals in Our Water
A grade 10 science passage on PFAS: why the carbon-fluorine bond makes them persist, how they reach water, and how a shifting federal rule limits them.
Grade 11 Reading passage
Why Water Mains Break: Renewing Calderwood's Aging Pipes
A grade 11 informational passage on why buried water mains fail and how a fictional utility uses leak detection and asset management to renew them.
Grade 11 Reading passage
Quenby's Water Resource Recovery: Biogas from Digestion
A grade 11 science reading passage on how a fictional plant uses anaerobic digestion to turn sludge into biogas energy and recover nutrients as biosolids.
Grade 11 Reading passage
Quillon Valley's Sinking Ground: Overdraft and Subsidence
A grade 11 science passage on a fictional valley where groundwater overdraft during drought caused permanent land subsidence, with literal and inferential questions.
Grade 12 Reading passage
Nutrients as Pollutant and Resource: The Wexford Lake Story
A grade 12 science passage on how nitrogen and phosphorus both pollute waterways and serve as recovered fertilizer, told through a fictional lake's recovery.
Grade 12 Reading passage
How Microbes Remove Nutrients at Rushmere Reclamation
A grade 12 science reading passage on how bacteria strip nitrogen and phosphorus from wastewater, framing nutrients as both a pollutant and a recoverable resource.
Grade 9 Reading passage
PFAS in Brindle Falls' Wells: Rules Still Being Written
A grade 9 science reading passage on PFAS, the 2024 federal limits and a proposed deadline exemption, and how a fictional town treated a contaminated well with carbon.
Grade 12 Reading passage
PFAS Regulation and the Shifting Compliance Deadline
A grade 12 passage on the federal PFAS drinking water rule, the treatment technologies utilities use, and the 2026 proposal to give some systems more time to comply.
Writing prompts
Grade 10 Writing prompt
Halgrave's Water Audit: Explaining the Missing Third
A grade 10 science explanatory prompt where students use a town water audit to explain apparent losses, real losses, and how three repairs change river withdrawals.
Grade 10 Writing prompt
Stormwater Rules for the Mardenfield Mill Site
A grade 10 science argument prompt where students take a position on whether a redevelopment must control runoff on site or pay into a downstream detention basin.
Debate kits
Grade 11 Debate kit
Sarnwick's Sewer Overflows: Green Streets or a Tunnel
A grade 11 debate on whether a fictional city should cut sewer overflows with green infrastructure or a deep storage tunnel, using soil and storm data.
Grade 12 Debate kit
Reconnecting the Ardsley Floodplain or Raising the Levee
A grade 12 science debate on whether a fictional levee district should set its levee back to reconnect a floodplain or raise the existing embankment in place.
Grade 12 Debate kit
Mandating Nutrient Removal Upgrades for Harlow Lake Plants
A grade 12 debate kit on requiring nutrient removal upgrades at plants discharging to a fictional lake, weighing water quality against ratepayer cost.
Grade 9 Debate kit
Mandatory Buffer Strips Along Fenwick Creek: A Grade 9 Debate Kit
A grade 9 debate kit on requiring farms along a fictional creek to keep vegetated buffer strips, weighing nutrient runoff against lost farmland and income.
Projects
Grade 12 Project
Road Salt and the Chloride Pulse in Havering Creek
A seven-session grade 12 field investigation measuring conductivity above and below salted roads, then evaluating a fictional town's winter salting practice.
Grade 9 Project
The Aldwinter High Water Audit: Finding the Standing Leak
A four-session grade 9 project where students meter their school's overnight water use, test one low-cost fix, and propose retrofits to a fictional facilities director.
Grade 11 Project
Cindermoss Creek Mine Drainage: A Passive Treatment Design
A six-session grade 11 project: teams design a gravity-driven treatment train for an abandoned mine discharge, sized by iron loading and limited by land and budget.
Quizzes & test questions
Grade 10 Quiz & test questions
Brightwater Utility Operations: A Grade 10 Unit Test
A 30-minute grade 10 unit test on the fictional Brightwater Utility, mixing multiple-choice, short-answer, and computation items on disinfection, turbidity, and pressure.
Grade 10 Quiz & test questions
Maplewood Stormwater Runoff and Green Infrastructure Quiz
A grade 10 quiz on stormwater where students apply the rational method and roof-runoff formula and evaluate green infrastructure for a fictional district.
Grade 11 Quiz & test questions
Morrant Well PFAS Treatment: Removal and Regulation Quiz
A grade 11 science quiz on PFAS chemistry, the 4.0 ppt limit, and treatment, mixing multiple-choice, computation, and evaluation items around a fictional town's well.
Grade 12 Quiz & test questions
Brockhurst Plant: Disinfection and Treatment Unit Test
A grade 12 unit test with multiple-choice, short-answer, and computation items on turbidity, chlorine dosing, removal efficiency, and detention time.
Grade 12 Quiz & test questions
Halbrook Water District: A Drinking-Water Standards Unit Test
A grade 12 science unit test on drinking-water standards, mixing multiple choice, short answer, and chlorine-dose computation for a fictional water district.
Grade 9 Quiz & test questions
Verdon Water Quality Unit Test: Treatment and Standards
A grade 9 unit test on drinking-water treatment and quality standards, mixing multiple-choice, short-answer, and computation items at a fictional town's plant.
Graphic organizers
Grade 10 Graphic organizer
Quarryfen Wellfield Protection Zones: A Land-Use Organizer
A grade 10 organizer mapping four wellhead protection zones around a fictional public well, matching the threats in each zone to controls and to who enforces them.
Grade 11 Graphic organizer
Kelbrook Reclaimed Water: A Reuse Tier Organizer
A grade 11 tier organizer matching five reclaimed water end uses to the treatment barriers, quality targets, and monitoring each one demands, with a completed exemplar.
Grade 12 Graphic organizer
Bellowmere Creek Source Water Barriers: A Pathway Organizer
A grade 12 organizer tracing six land uses in a fictional watershed from pollutant to pathway to the barrier that interrupts it, plus a monitoring point.
Grade 12 Graphic organizer
Fettleworth Orchard Irrigation: A Weighted Decision Matrix
A grade 12 organizer where students set criteria, assign weights, and score solid-set sprinklers against subsurface drip for a fictional orchard facing a pumping limit.