The California Aqueduct
Episode of the series Man-made Wonders of America
The episode
A concrete river across dry land. A blue line eleven hundred kilometres long, open to the sun and the wind, carrying water right across California's brown fields.
Episode worksheets (2)
- Student sheet In your teacher account
- Teacher sheet In your teacher account
Teaching guide
Objective & content
The documentary presents the California Aqueduct, a channel of concrete about 1,100 kilometres long, open to the sky. It explains the problem (rain and snow fall in the north, while most people and farms are in the south) and the solution, the State Water Project, with its lakes and giant pumps that lift water over the Tehachapi Mountains. It also shows why the aqueduct matters for Central Valley farms and cities like Los Angeles, and why water is still short in a dry year. The grammar focus is present simple for the place and past simple for dated build facts; the vocabulary covers the environment, farming and government. Learners work on listening comprehension, then answer the in-app quiz.
Materials & prerequisites
- Student sheet and teacher sheet (PDF and HTML versions, in the printables folder).
- Prerequisites: present simple, regular and irregular past simple (started, built, made), and the points of the compass.
Curriculum alignment
Tagged for cycle 3 (6e): the child and the wider environment, and the child and the living world. The episode targets CEFR level A2+.
Possible adaptations
- Lower levels: Offer segmented listening and additional visual aids.
- Advanced levels: Encourage an oral summary and a debate in English on the theme.
- Large groups: Organise group work with differentiated roles.
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