Living Root Garden School • Design • Name: ______________________
🔍 The Case
The case of the runaway rain — after a storm, the water races away instead of soaking in. Slow it down.
A berm is a low, wide hill made of soil, usually only a few inches tall and long and gentle like a sleeping snake. Its job is to block and steer water — rain running across a flat yard hits a berm and has to stop, turn, or soak in — and it raises a plant's feet out of soggy ground.
A swale is the berm's partner: a shallow ditch dug along the gentle slope of a yard, with a berm piled on its downhill side. Rain drops into the swale, slows down, and soaks into the ground instead of racing away — a good swale holds water for a day, then drains.
Rule out the lookalikes: a swale is not a drain — a drain gets rid of water fast, and a swale keeps it around on purpose, like a slow-motion rain garden stretched out long. And a berm is a long gentle ridge, not just a heap of dirt.
Paths are earthworks too: every footstep squishes garden soil flat, squeezing out the air pockets that roots and worms need — that is called compaction, and compacted soil grows almost nothing. A path of mulch, wood chips, or stepping stones takes all the footsteps so the beds never have to.
Ask: When you pour water on your tray model, which way do you think the water will go — and what will stop it?
Try: After a rain, watch where the water goes in your yard and sketch the flow. Then build a tabletop model in a tray: a little berm, a little swale, and a path — pour water from a can and watch what changes. Kids own the model and the rain-watching; real digging is a grown-up job.
Stretch (Teens & Growers ready for more): Measure how much water your model swale holds before it overflows, then sketch a full-size version for a real wet spot with measurements — and remember, a real swale never steers water toward the house.
Tell: Fill in the log below — date, what you saw, what surprised you — then finish this sentence in words or a labeled drawing: “My swale held the water for ___ because ___.”
Date
What I saw
What surprised me
Date: ____/____/____
Date: ____/____/____
Date: ____/____/____
Date: ____/____/____
🛠️ Build It
Draw your tray model from the side, cut open like a dollhouse — berm, swale, path, and the water's path through it.
🗣️ Be the Teacher
Tell someone the difference between a swale and a drain — in your own words, no reading off the packet.
🏅 I can…
☐ I can slow rain down and put it where plants need it.
Portfolio check
☐ Guide read
☐ Case solved
☐ Ask, Try, Tell done
☐ Build It filed: Water-flow sketch + model photo or drawing
☐ Taught someone
☐ Badge earned: I can slow rain down and put it where plants need it.
Living Root Garden School • livingrootgarden.com/homeschool/ • Free — print as many copies as you like. File this sheet with your portfolio log. Sprouts do the Read, the Case, and Build It; Growers try the Ask, Try, Tell stretch when ready; Teens do the whole packet — including teaching it back.