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Worksheet Grade 10 Art & Music

Kettleworth PFAS Notice Layout: Grade 10 Type-Scale Worksheet

A grade 10 design worksheet where students lay out a fictional water system's PFAS public notice, building a modular type scale and a column grid with real measurements.

Objectives

  1. Students will explain how a type hierarchy improves the clarity of a public notice.
  2. Students will construct and evaluate an exponential rule for a modular type scale.
  3. Students will divide a fixed page width into margins, columns, and a gutter.

Vocabulary

Key words: type hierarchy, modular scale, gutter, legibility

Teacher overview

When a water system's levels of PFAS, a group of long-lasting industrial chemicals, exceed the federal limits once those limits take effect, it must send customers a written public notice. Systems must meet the PFOA and PFOS limits by April 2029. In May 2026 EPA proposed letting eligible systems apply for a two-year exemption, to April 2031, without changing the limits; that proposal was not final as of September 2026, so the timeline for some systems may still change. The notice only works if a reader can find the key facts fast, so its design is a typography problem. This worksheet has students lay out a notice for the fictional Kettleworth Water System: build a modular type scale that sizes the headline, subhead, and body text by a constant ratio, and divide the page into a clean column grid. The math is a geometric sequence for the type sizes and simple partitioning for the grid.

Kettleworth PFAS Notice Layout: Grade 10 Type-Scale Worksheet — Grade 10 Art & Music
Name: ____________________________ Date: ______________

Student Worksheet

The fictional Kettleworth Water System must lay out a one-page PFAS notice. Use the numbers in each item.

  1. A notice uses different type sizes for its headline, subhead, and body text. Explain in one or two sentences why this hierarchy helps a reader.
  2. Many residents reading the notice are older. Name two typographic choices that make small body text easier to read.
  3. A modular type scale starts at a 12-point body size and multiplies by 1.25 at each larger step. Write a formula for the size S of step n, where n equals 0 at the body size.
  4. Using your formula, find the point size at step 1 and step 2. Round to the nearest tenth.
  5. Find the headline size at step 4 of the scale. Round to the nearest tenth.
  6. The notice page is 8.5 inches wide. You set a 1-inch margin on the left and a 1-inch margin on the right. How wide is the text area that remains?
  7. You split the 6.5-inch text area into 2 equal columns with a 0.5-inch gutter between them. How wide is each column?
  8. The notice reports that PFOA and PFOS must each stay at or below 4 parts per trillion. Where in the type hierarchy should this figure sit, and why?
  9. Add up the two 1-inch margins, the two 3-inch columns, and the 0.5-inch gutter. Show that the parts total the 8.5-inch page width.
  10. A designer wants to set the whole notice in one large size to make it feel important. Explain why a hierarchy of sizes communicates more clearly than a single large size.

From Water for Schools (waterforschools.org). This material is in the public domain (CC0) and may be copied, edited, and shared freely.

Answer Key
  1. Answer: A hierarchy lets a reader scan in order of importance: the headline signals the topic, the subhead gives the key point, and the body fills in detail, so the reader finds what matters without reading every word.
  2. Answer: Any two of: a large enough body size, generous line spacing, strong value contrast between text and background, and a simple, even-weight typeface.
  3. Answer: S equals 12 times 1.25 raised to the power n. Each step multiplies the previous size by the constant ratio 1.25.
  4. Answer: 15 points; step 2 is 18.8 points. Step 1 is 12 times 1.25, or 15; step 2 is 15 times 1.25, or 18.75, which rounds to 18.8 points.
  5. Answer: 29.3 points. Step 4 is 12 times 1.25 to the fourth power, or 12 times 2.4414, which is 29.296, rounding to 29.3 points.
  6. Answer: 6.5 inches. The two 1-inch margins remove 2 inches from the 8.5-inch page, leaving 6.5 inches.
  7. Answer: 3 inches. Subtract the 0.5-inch gutter from 6.5 inches to get 6 inches, then divide by 2 columns for 3 inches each.
  8. Answer: Near the top, at subhead level or emphasized within it. The figure is a key fact, so it should sit high in the hierarchy, though the required customer action should still be the largest, headline-level element.
  9. Answer: 8.5 inches. 1 plus 3 plus 0.5 plus 3 plus 1 equals 8.5 inches, which matches the page width.
  10. Answer: One large size gives every word equal weight, so nothing stands out and the reader must hunt for the key point. A hierarchy ranks the information, guiding the eye from the most important message downward.

Differentiation

Support

Provide the type-scale formula already written for item 3 so students focus on evaluating it in items 4 and 5, and supply a diagram of the page grid with the margins and gutter labeled before item 6.

Extension

Ask students to extend the type scale one step below the body text (n = -1) to find a caption size, write its value, and explain how choosing a larger ratio, such as 1.5, would change the contrast between headline and body across the same number of steps.

ELL supports

Give a bilingual glossary card for "hierarchy," "margin," "column," and "gutter," each with a small labeled image. Allow items 1, 2, 8, and 10 to be answered with short phrases or a labeled sketch of the page instead of full sentences.