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Lawns or Trout? Saving a River in July

Grade 6 earth science: use a town's pumping and river gauge data to monitor summer lawn watering and pick a plan that keeps enough cool water for trout.

Grade 6ScienceInteractive · Printable

Aligned toMS-ESS3-3

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What’s included

Single worksheet
Auto-graded online
1 NGSS standard
Printable answer key
10 questions
Classroom-ready

Details

Format: Interactive · Printable
Grade: Grade 6
Subject: Science
Question types: Fill in the blank, Multiple choice, Sorting, Short answer

About this worksheet

What students practice

Students analyze pumping and river gauge data to monitor how summer water use affects a river.
Students evaluate plans to reduce water use against a flow goal and a budget.
Students design a monitoring check to tell whether a plan worked.

How to use

Read the passage together and make sure students know the two fish guidelines and the budget before they start. Calculators are fine for Section 2.

Curriculum

NGSS standard covered

MS-ESS3-3

Design a way to monitor and reduce a human impact on the environment.

Preview

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Name Date

Lawns or Trout? Saving a River in July

Monitor a town's summer water use and choose a plan that leaves more water in the river.

Monitoring the river

Read the passage and Table 1. Then answer the questions.

A River That Runs Low

1Cedar Bend is a small town in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. The town and its numbers are made up, but they are based on real mountain towns. Cedar Bend pumps its drinking water from the Juniper River at an intake just above town. Below the intake, the river is home to brown trout, and anglers come from all over the state to fish there. Each summer, though, the river below town gets low and warm. Wren Castellano and Dario Benedetti, two sixth graders on the town's youth water council, asked the town water engineer, Ms. Folasade Adeyemi, what could be done.

2Ms. Adeyemi monitors the river in two ways. A meter at the pump station records how much water the town pumps, in liters per second (L/s). A gauge 1 km below the intake records how much water is still flowing in the river and how warm it is. State fish biologists set two guidelines for this stretch of river: a flow of at least 680 L/s below the intake, and water no warmer than 20 °C. Warmer water holds less dissolved oxygen, which stresses trout.

3In April, nearly all the water the town pumps is used indoors, for drinking, cooking, washing and toilets. Indoor use stays about the same all year. Most of the extra water pumped in summer is sprayed on lawns and gardens.

4The council's goal is to raise the July flow below the intake to at least 680 L/s. The town can spend at most $200,000 this year. Water that the town does not pump stays in the river, so every liter per second of pumping that is cut adds the same amount to the flow below the intake.