NCERT Solutions for Class 5th English Chapter 6 A. How water tanks are cleaned · B. The Thirsty Crow

Q1.

You have read a lot about tanks. Have you ever wondered how these tanks are cleaned? Find out about the techniques for cleaning water tanks. You may bring relevant pictures or photographs. Prepare a chart and put it up in your class.

Answer

How to find out:

Step 1. Ask at home. Somebody in your family gets the tank cleaned, or has watched it being done. Ask them how it is done and how often.
Step 2. Ask your school helper or the plumber who comes to your building. They are the people who actually do this work.
Step 3. With a teacher, look for pictures in a newspaper or on the internet, and cut out or print two or three.
Step 4. Write the steps in order on a chart paper, one step per line, with a picture beside each.
Step 5. Give the chart a heading and put it up on your classroom wall.

Safety first — write this on your chart in red: Cleaning a tank is grown-ups’ work. A child must never climb into a tank. The air inside a closed tank can be dangerous and the walls are slippery. Your job is to watch, ask and learn — from outside.

Sample answer — the chart, ready to copy:

HOW A WATER TANK IS CLEANED
Class 5 · Eco Club chart

Step	What is done	Why it is done
1. Switch off	Switch off the motor and close the inlet, so no fresh water comes in.	So the tank can be emptied and nobody gets an electric shock.
2. Empty it	Drain the water out. Save the last of it in buckets for washing the floor or the plants.	Even dirty tank water is too precious to throw down the drain.
3. Remove the sludge	Scoop out the mud, sand and leaves lying at the bottom.	This soft mud, called sludge, is where germs live.
4. Scrub the walls	Scrub the walls, the floor and the corners with a hard brush.	To take off the green slippery layer, called algae.
5. Rinse	Wash it all down with clean water and drain that out too.	To carry away everything the brush has loosened.
6. Disinfect	Wipe the tank with a weak solution of bleaching powder or chlorine, then rinse once more.	To kill the germs the brush could not remove.
7. Dry and close	Let it dry, then put the lid back and fix the wire mesh over the pipes.	The lid keeps out dust, leaves, birds and lizards; the mesh keeps out mosquitoes.
8. Refill	Switch the motor on and fill the tank again.	The house has clean, safe water once more.

Some ways it is done:

By hand — a brush, a bucket and a scrubber. This is how most homes and villages do it.
Pressure jet — a machine throws water out hard, so the dirt is knocked off the walls without anyone scrubbing.
Vacuum cleaning — a big suction pipe sucks the sludge out from the bottom, the way a vacuum cleaner picks up dust.
For big open tanks and ponds — the whole village works together on a cleaning day, taking out the silt and the weeds.

How often, and why it matters: A household tank should be cleaned about twice a year. Water that stands still for months grows algae and collects sludge, and mosquitoes breed in an open tank. Storing water is only half the job — keeping it clean is the other half. A dirty tank can make a whole family ill.

Q2.

Look at the pictures given below. The story may already be familiar to you.

The four pictures printed on page 78. The numbers show the order to read them in.

The crow has become famous for its innovative idea. Imagine that your school has invited the crow to interact with the students. Enact the event with the help of your teacher.

Answer

First, read the four pictures on page 78. They tell the story without a single word.

Picture 1. A hot day — the sun blazes and the tree behind is bare. A thirsty crow perches on the rim of a round glass pot and bends its head in. The water is far below. Its beak cannot reach.
Picture 2. The crow is down on the sand beside the pot, picking up a small pebble in its beak. It has had an idea.
Picture 3. The crow flies above the pot and drops a pebble in. A few pebbles already lie at the bottom, and the water is a little higher.
Picture 4. The pot is full of pebbles and the water has risen right to the top. The crow sits on the rim and drinks.

Why the trick works: The pebbles take up room at the bottom of the pot. The water cannot be squeezed, so it has nowhere to go but up. Nothing was added to the water — it was only pushed higher. You can test this at home: put a glass half full of water on the table, mark the level, then drop in six marbles and look again.

Why the crow is called “innovative”: Innovative means finding a clever new way to do something. The crow could not reach the water and could not tip the heavy pot. So instead of changing itself, it changed the water — and no bird had thought of that before.

How to enact the event, step by step:

Step 1. Fix the roles with your teacher: the Crow (the chief guest), the Principal, two teachers, the School Pupil Leader who anchors, a photographer, a videographer, someone for the mic, and 15–20 students in the audience.
Step 2. Set the stage. Put a chair for the crow, a table with a bouquet, and a glass pot with a few pebbles beside it, as a prop.
Step 3. Make simple costumes. A black shirt and a paper beak are enough for the crow.
Step 4. Decide the order: welcome → the crow’s talk → questions from the audience → thank-you → group photograph.
Step 5. Write out your own lines and practise them twice. Speak loudly and slowly.

Sample answer — a short script for the event:

School Pupil Leader: Good morning, everyone. Today our school has a very special guest. He is small, he is black, and he is famous all over India for one clever idea. Please welcome the Thirsty Crow!

(The Crow walks in. Everyone claps. The Principal gives him a bouquet.)

Principal: Welcome to our school, Crow-ji. We are proud to have you here. Children, this bird did not give up when he was thirsty. He thought — and that is the lesson of today.

Crow: Thank you, Madam. Thank you, children. It was a very hot day, and I had flown a long way. I found a pot with a little water at the bottom, but my beak could not reach it.

Student 1: Sir, what did you feel at that moment?

Crow: I felt like flying away. But I sat still and looked around instead. I saw pebbles on the ground. I thought — if the pot cannot come to me, perhaps the water can. So I dropped in one pebble, then another, and the water rose a little each time.

Student 2: How many pebbles did you drop?

Crow: I did not count. I only kept going. That is the important part — I did not stop after three.

Student 3: What would you like to tell us, Sir?

Crow: Two things. First, when a problem looks too big, look at it in a new way. Second — please do not let me get so thirsty again! Keep a bowl of water on your terrace in summer, for the birds. Our chapter is about water tanks. My pot was my water tank.

(Everyone claps.)

Teacher: Thank you, Crow-ji. Children, let us all promise to keep water out for the birds this summer.

School Pupil Leader: We now request our guest to join us for a photograph. Thank you all for coming.

What a good enactment needs: every child has a job — even the mic tester and the photographer. Speak so the last row can hear. Keep it short, about ten minutes. And end with something the audience can actually do — here, the bowl of water for the birds.

Why this story ends the chapter: The whole of Unit 3 is about water — how we store it, how we save it, how we waste it. The crow is the smallest water-saver of all. He had almost no water, so he used his head instead of giving up. That is exactly what the villages of Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Punjab have done with their tankas, ooranis, wells and rooftop tanks.

NCERT Solutions for Class 5th English Chapter 6 A. How water tanks are cleaned · B. The Thirsty Crow — Let us Explore