Grade 6 Lesson plan
Where to Build Post-and-Brush Dams on Sedge Run
Students weigh three stream reaches against a post supply and a one-day work limit, then choose where a fictional crew should build low post-and-brush dams.
NGSS · Middle School (6–8)
MS-ETS1-1 Define criteria and constraints of a design problem
Define the criteria and constraints of a design problem with sufficient precision to ensure a successful solution, taking into account relevant scientific principles and potential impacts on people and the natural environment that may limit possible solutions.
Why water teaches this standard well
A water treatment or stormwater challenge forces students to state criteria and constraints with real precision: a target turbidity, a fixed budget, and impacts on the downstream community. Defining a water problem this carefully is exactly the work engineers do before designing any piece of infrastructure.
Materials tagged with this code are written to the full standard , and each carries a written note explaining the alignment. See how we review materials.
64 materials aligned to MS-ETS1-1
Lesson plans
Grade 7 Lesson plan
Mossgrave Courts Greywater: Choosing an Irrigation Layout
A 50-minute grade 7 lesson matching laundry greywater supply to courtyard irrigation demand, then screening three layouts against a coverage target and a budget.
Grade 8 Lesson plan
Morley Cross Hard Water: Choosing How to Soften a Supply
A 50-minute grade 8 lesson where students weigh central lime softening, ion exchange, and household rebates against hardness, chloride, cost, and fairness criteria.
Grade 8 Lesson plan
Roxby Weir's New Source: A Four-Role Design Review Panel
A 55-minute grade 8 lesson where students take four water-sector roles, judge three new-source options from their own criterion, and negotiate one recommendation.
Grade 6 Lesson plan
Bramfell School Backflow Preventer Design Lesson
A 50-minute lesson where students pick a backflow assembly for a fictional school greenhouse, then check the device still leaves enough pressure at the sprinklers.
Grade 6 Lesson plan
Wrenfield Lead Service Line Replacement Plan Lesson
A grade 6 engineering lesson where students design a phased plan to replace a town's lead service lines on a deadline and budget, then check it with rate and percent.
Grade 7 Lesson plan
Meridian Bluffs Recharge Basin: Designing for Drought Resilience
Students design a managed aquifer recharge basin for a fictional town, choosing a site and shape that refill a falling aquifer within real constraints.
Grade 7 Lesson plan
Sablewood Creek Monitoring Plan: Designing to Detect Pollution
Students design a water-quality monitoring plan for a fictional creek, choosing sampling sites and tests to detect three pollution sources within real limits.
Grade 7 Lesson plan
Threshel Brook Culvert: Criteria for a Farm Road Crossing
A grade 7 lesson where students use a map scale to find a drainage area, size the design flow for a fictional culvert, and separate its criteria from its constraints.
Grade 8 Lesson plan
Mossbank's Campus Pond: Designing a Floating Treatment Wetland
A grade 8 engineering lesson where students size a floating wetland raft to pull nitrogen from a green campus pond, working within a materials budget.
Grade 8 Lesson plan
Pellstock School Rooftop Condensate: A Recovery Design Lesson
A 55-minute grade 8 lesson where students set criteria and constraints for capturing air conditioner condensate, then model the storage tank with a linear function.
Grade 8 Lesson plan
Choosing PFAS Treatment for Tannery Springs: A Design Trade-Off Study
A grade 8 engineering lesson where students weigh three PFAS treatment options with a decision matrix, judging removal, cost, energy, and waste trade-offs.
Grade 6 Lesson plan
Havenmoor Sedimentation Basin: Detention Time and Settling
A 40-minute grade 6 science lesson where students compute detention time for a fictional plant's settling basin and connect slower water to cleaner water.
Grade 6 Lesson plan
Kettle Hollow's Runoff Problem: Designing Green Infrastructure
A 55-minute grade 6 science lesson where students calculate roof runoff and design green infrastructure to cut stormwater in a fictional downtown.
Grade 7 Lesson plan
Sizing the Rennick Canal: A Flow, Area, and Velocity Lesson
A 50-minute grade 7 science lesson where students use flow equals area times velocity to size a fictional canal and reason about how area and speed change flow.
Grade 8 Lesson plan
A Shift at Ironwood Water Plant: Sizing Flow and Pumps
A 50-minute grade 8 science lesson where students run a fictional water plant's numbers: converting MGD to gpm, sizing a pump for peak demand, and setting criteria.
Grade 6 Lesson plan
Millbrook Creek Household Filter Design Challenge
Teams define a clarity target and a 20-credit budget, then design, build, and test a three-layer household water filter for the fictional town of Millbrook Creek.
Grade 6 Lesson plan
Sable Ridge Water Tower Height and Stability Challenge
Teams design, build, and test a straw-and-tape model water tower across two rounds, meeting a height and load requirement for the fictional town of Sable Ridge.
Grade 7 Lesson plan
Corvid Hollow Rain Garden: Defining Design Criteria and Constraints
A 50-minute grade 7 lesson where students separate design criteria from constraints for a school rain garden and calculate the runoff volume it must capture.
Grade 8 Lesson plan
Marrow Vale School Parking Lot: A Green Infrastructure Lesson
A 50-minute grade 8 lesson calculating peak stormwater runoff for a conventional versus a green-infrastructure parking lot and testing both against a criterion.
Worksheets
Grade 6 Worksheet
Wembrey Ombry Street Leak Sensor Spacing Worksheet
Eleven items where students space leak sensors along an old water main in a fictional town, price the sensor set, and compare what the leaks cost with finding them.
Grade 7 Worksheet
Cinderfield Seep Cell: Sizing Limestone and Retention Time
A grade 7 worksheet on a fictional quarry seep where students size a limestone treatment cell, test it against a retention-time rule, and deepen it for spring flows.
Grade 7 Worksheet
Pike Hollow PFAS Filter: Sizing Carbon and Flow
Students design a fictional town's carbon filter for PFAS, using percent removal to check each well against the 4.0 ppt limit and sizing the daily flow.
Grade 7 Worksheet
Windleford Junction Fire Flow: Sizing a Storage Tank Reserve
A grade 7 worksheet where students stack a fire reserve, a day of demand, and an operating reserve, then test a fictional village's proposed tank against the total.
Grade 7 Worksheet
Windrow Booster Pump: Pressure-Zone Design Constraints
Students size a fictional town's booster pump, turning water height into pressure and checking each neighborhood against a service pressure range.
Grade 8 Worksheet
Belmoor's Water-Main Replacement Budget: A Linear Function Worksheet
A grade 8 worksheet where students build linear cost functions for replacing aging water mains, solve for feet within a budget, and compare two contracts.
Grade 6 Worksheet
Drayton's Aging Water Mains: Choosing What to Replace First
A grade 6 science worksheet where students weigh cost, age, and location to plan a fictional town's limited water-main replacement program.
Grade 7 Worksheet
Brackenfell Ridge Pressure Zones: From Elevation to psi
Students use the 0.433 psi per foot constant to turn house elevations in a fictional hill town into water pressures, then judge which homes fall outside safe limits.
Grade 8 Worksheet
Falkirk Heights Pressure Zones: Solving for Head and Pressure
A grade 8 science worksheet where students convert head to pressure on a fictional hillside system and solve linear equations for an unknown tank elevation.
Grade 8 Worksheet
Quillfoot's Hydrant Flow Test: Velocity in the Water Main
A grade 8 science worksheet using Q = A x V on a fictional district's hydrant test to find velocity, travel time, and whether pressure stays above the required minimum.
Grade 6 Worksheet
Corrigan Bend Water-Quality Sampling Plan Worksheet
Nine items where students size a river water-quality sampling plan against a coverage rule and a fixed budget, then compare a bulk-price alternative.
Grade 6 Worksheet
Foxglen Road Culvert Capacity and Peak Flow Worksheet
Nine items where students test three fictional replacement culverts against a required peak flow and a project budget, then check a safety margin.
Grade 7 Worksheet
Hemlock Bend RO Pilot: Sizing Recovery Rate and Reject Volume
A grade 7 worksheet where students use a stated recovery rate to size a reverse-osmosis pilot's clean water output and reject volume against a service constraint.
Grade 7 Worksheet
Cattail Marsh Pump Station: Flow Rate and Design Constraints
A grade 7 engineering worksheet where students size a fictional stormwater pump station, converting flow units and applying the continuity equation to a constraint.
Math problem sets
Grade 6 Math problem set
Harrowfield Well 3 Carbon Filter Sizing and Cost Problems
Ten problems in which students size carbon treatment vessels for a fictional town's PFAS-affected well, then work out media cost, yearly cost, and percent of budget.
Grade 7 Math problem set
Copperline Lead Service Line Replacement: A Percent and Budget Set
Students plan a fictional town's lead service line replacement, finding yearly pace, program cost, grant share, and how a test result compares to the action level.
Grade 7 Math problem set
Ironmoss Creek Digester: Biogas Sizing and Solids Reduction
A grade 7 problem set on a fictional sludge digester where students work percent reduction, biogas volume, and the share of a plant's daily electricity it covers.
Grade 7 Math problem set
Stannock Bend Well Field: Pump Hours Under a Drawdown Limit
A grade 7 set on a fictional well field where students find a drawdown rate as a constant of proportionality and solve an inequality for safe pump hours.
Grade 8 Math problem set
Bracewater's Reverse-Osmosis Blend: A Systems of Equations Set
A grade 8 set where students write and solve a two-equation system to blend pure reverse-osmosis water with bypass water to hit a target dissolved-solids level.
Grade 8 Math problem set
Sablerock's Pressure Filters: A Cylinder Volume and Loading-Rate Set
A grade 8 engineering set that sizes cylindrical pressure filters, converts volume to gallons, and checks loading rates against a safe design range.
Grade 8 Math problem set
Sunmarch Ridge's Solar Well Pump: Building a Linear Function
A grade 8 set where students build and use linear functions for a solar well pump, combining a steady fill rate, a starting amount, and daily household use.
Grade 6 Math problem set
Oakspur Plant Detention Time: How Long Water Settles
A grade 6 science math set where students find a fictional basin's volume, then divide by flow to get detention time and check it against the 2-to-4-hour design range.
Grade 7 Math problem set
Graymoor's Sedimentation Basin: Volume and Detention Time
A grade 7 science problem set on a fictional plant's settling basin: students find its volume in gallons, its detention time, and the percent of turbidity removed.
Grade 8 Math problem set
Sizing Corvale's Stormwater Detention Basin: A Cylinder Volume Set
A grade 8 problem set using the rational runoff method and cylinder volume formula to size an underground detention basin for a fictional paved business park.
Grade 8 Math problem set
Nettlebrook Reservoir Spillway: A Grade 8 Scatter Plot Set
A grade 8 problem set where students scatter-plot eight years of rainfall and reservoir inflow data, fit a trend line by eye, and set a spillway capacity constraint.
Classroom activities
Grade 6 Classroom activity
Corrantry Hill Pressure Zone Placement Activity
Groups act as a utility design team, finding water pressure at six houses on a fictional hillside and deciding which ones belong in a booster-served upper zone.
Grade 6 Classroom activity
Cobble Hill Trade-off Draft: A Water Main Upgrade Game
A card-drafting game where teams build a 3-card water main upgrade package within a point budget and test it against a town council's three design criteria.
Projects
Grades 6–7 Project
Schoolyard Stormwater Runoff: An Audit and Design Project
Teams map their schoolyard's hard and soft surfaces, calculate real stormwater runoff in gallons, trace where it drains, and pitch a fix to a real school decision-maker.
Grade 6 Project
A Phased Water Plan for the Gossett Ridge Homes
Teams take three water-sector roles and design a two-phase plan for a fictional hillside neighborhood, since the grant pays for only part of the work they want to build.
Grade 7 Project
Millbrandt Drainage District: A Nutrient Interception Design
A five-session grade 7 project where teams screen four nitrate-cutting designs against land, budget, and drainage limits, then pitch one to a fictional drainage board.
Grade 7 Project
Varnholt Flats Brackish Wells: Designing an RO Pretreatment
A four-session grade 7 project where teams order and justify the treatment steps ahead of a fictional brackish-well membrane plant, then defend the train to the board.
Grade 8 Project
Wickmoor Well Field Drought Triggers: Designing a Response Plan
A four-session grade 8 project in which teams design a staged drought trigger plan from well-level data and defend it to a water board with a one-page notice.
Grade 8 Project
Beneath the Streets: An Aging-Water-Mains Exhibit Design
A grade 8 art project where teams design a scaled three-panel museum exhibit about why old water mains break, within a fixed panel size and a fictional budget.
Quizzes & test questions
Grade 6 Quiz & test questions
Ferrow Bend Ice Rink Meltwater Reuse Assessment
A 25-point quiz on a fictional rink's plan to capture and reuse ice-resurfacer meltwater, with multiple-choice and computation items on volume, savings, and fill time.
Grade 7 Quiz & test questions
Delta Vale Stormwater Retrofit: Engineering Design Unit Test
A grade 7 engineering unit test on a fictional stormwater retrofit, mixing multiple-choice, short-answer, and computation items on runoff and percent reduction.
Grade 7 Quiz & test questions
Tallowmere Orchard Pond Liner: Grade 7 Engineering Design Test
A 32-point grade 7 test where students size a fictional irrigation pond, compute seepage saved by two liners, and compare their yearly costs before recommending one.
Grade 8 Quiz & test questions
Culverton's Flooded Underpass: A Stormwater Design Assessment
A grade 8 assessment mixing multiple-choice, computation, and design short-answer items on reducing runoff, using the rational method and scientific notation.
Grade 8 Quiz & test questions
Oldcastle Mill Race Micro-Hydro: A Design Screening Quiz
A 20-point grade 8 quiz on screening a micro-hydro project, mixing constraint identification with forebay volume, pressure, and flow conversion computations.
Grade 7 Quiz & test questions
Marlstone Treatment Pilot: A Grade 7 Engineering Unit Test
A 22-point grade 7 unit test with multiple-choice, short-answer, and computation items on design criteria, removal efficiency, and backwash waste.
Graphic organizers
Grade 6 Graphic organizer
Criteria and Constraints for the Ravelle Hollow Fire Cistern
A grade 6 sorting frame that splits eight statements about a fictional buried fire cistern into criteria, constraints, and wants, each with a stated test and target.
Grade 6 Graphic organizer
Choosing a Disinfection Method for the Tinbury Wells
A grade 6 scoring matrix that rates chlorine tablets, a liquid feed pump, and an ultraviolet reactor against four rules for a fictional small water system.
Grade 7 Graphic organizer
Pentarrow PFAS Options: A Treatment Decision Matrix
A grade 7 organizer pairing a pass-or-fail constraint screen with a weighted scoring matrix for three PFAS treatment options at a fictional water district.
Grade 7 Graphic organizer
Quillmoss Kiln Street Main: Criteria and Constraints Frame
A grade 7 organizer that turns vague meeting comments about a failing water main into measurable requirements, sorted into criteria and constraints with named impacts.
Grade 8 Graphic organizer
Calderstone Fields Runoff: A Criteria and Constraints Frame
A grade 8 definition organizer that separates measurable criteria from hard constraints before students propose any fix for nutrient runoff from school athletic fields.