The California Aqueduct

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+.