Project Grade 10 Art & Music
Torro Mesa Lead Line Campaign: A Grade 10 Design Project
A grade 10 art project where teams design a public-awareness campaign about lead service lines for a fictional town, within a budget, and present it to a water board.
Objectives
- Students will design a public-awareness campaign about lead service lines for a fictional community.
- Students will keep a poster print run and a mural proposal within a fixed budget.
- Students will present a campaign to a fictional water board with accurate facts.
Vocabulary
- Lead service line
- A lead service line is an old water pipe made of lead metal that connects a house to the water main. Lead can get into the drinking water, so these pipes are being dug up and replaced across the country.
Also: public campaign, visual hierarchy, scale
Teacher overview
Many homes still get their water through a lead service line, the pipe that connects a house to the water main, and new federal rules require water systems to replace nearly all of them. This project asks student teams to design a public-awareness campaign for Torro Mesa (a fictional community) that helps residents find out whether they have a lead line and encourages support for replacement. Over four sessions, teams research the facts, design a poster set and a scaled mural proposal within a fixed budget, and present the campaign to a class acting as the town's water board. The final deliverable is a campaign package plus a short presentation.
Project Brief
Driving question: How can we design a campaign that helps Torro Mesa residents check for a lead service line and support replacing these lines, using a fixed budget?
Scenario: The fictional Torro Mesa Water Board has asked student design teams for a public-awareness campaign. The board wants clear, honest materials that residents can understand quickly.
Facts your campaign must use correctly:
- A lead service line is the pipe that links a home to the water main. Lead can enter tap water from these lines.
- The lead action level is 15 parts per billion, and it drops to 10 parts per billion in 2027.
- The action level is a trigger for the water system to act, not a safe level. EPA's health goal for lead in drinking water is zero.
- EPA estimates that about 4 million lead service lines remain in US water systems, and the new rules call for replacing nearly all of them within about 10 years. EPA's November 2025 estimate is built from the service line inventories utilities reported, and it replaces an older estimate of about 9 million that some sources still cite.
- Residents can find out whether they have a lead line by looking up their address in the water system's service line inventory or by asking the utility. A plumber can also identify the pipe where it enters the home.
Constraints:
- Budget: $600 total for the whole campaign. This is a fictional budget set for the project, and the teacher will give you a price sheet.
- Poster set: three posters, each carrying one clear message. Printing costs $8 per poster.
- Mural proposal: a scaled site plan for an 8-foot by 4-foot wall at the community center, with a material cost you estimate from the price sheet.
- The campaign must be honest and must neither overstate nor understate the risk.
Final deliverable: A campaign package with three finished posters, a scaled mural site plan on grid paper, an itemized budget, and a five-minute presentation to the water board.
Milestones
- Session 1 (Research and message): Teams study the lead facts above and decide on three campaign messages and the audience for each. One poster should explain what a lead service line is, one should tell residents how to check, and one should explain why replacement matters. Output: a one-page message brief listing the three messages and their audiences.
- Session 2 (Poster drafts and cost): Teams draft all three posters, choosing a color strategy and a visual hierarchy so each message reads in seconds. Teams then estimate the print cost at $8 per poster for the planned run. Output: three labeled poster drafts and a print-cost estimate.
- Session 3 (Mural proposal to scale): Teams design a mural for the 8-foot by 4-foot community-center wall, drawing it to scale on grid paper and estimating material cost from the price sheet. Teams check that the poster run plus the mural materials stay within the $600 budget. Output: a scaled mural site plan and an itemized budget under $600.
- Session 4 (Present to the board): Teams assemble the full campaign and present it to the class acting as the Torro Mesa Water Board, explaining their messages, their design choices, and how they stayed within budget. Output: the finished campaign package and a five-minute presentation.
From Water for Schools (waterforschools.org). This material is in the public domain (CC0) and may be copied, edited, and shared freely.
Rubric
| Criterion | Emerging | Developing | Proficient | Advanced |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fact accuracy | The campaign states lead facts incorrectly or overstates the risk | The campaign uses some facts but blurs the action level or replacement timeline | The campaign states the action level, the replacement rule, and how to check, all correctly | The campaign states the facts correctly and frames them so a resident knows exactly what to do next |
| Design quality | Posters lack a clear message or hierarchy and are hard to read | One or two posters read clearly; the others compete for attention | All three posters have a clear focal point, hierarchy, and legible color choices | All three posters are clear and legible and share a unified visual identity across the set |
| Budget constraint | The campaign exceeds $600 or has no itemized costs | Costs are listed but incomplete or push past $600 | The itemized budget totals $600 or less and matches the planned posters and mural | The budget is at or under $600, itemized, and explains one tradeoff the team made to stay within it |
| Mural proposal and scale | The mural site plan is missing or not to scale | The site plan is drawn but the scale is inconsistent with the 8-by-4-foot wall | The site plan fits the 8-by-4-foot wall and is drawn to a stated, consistent scale | The site plan is to scale, fits the wall, and shows how the mural echoes the poster messages |
| Presentation to the board | The presentation is unclear or leaves out the budget | The presentation covers the design but not the reasoning or budget | The presentation clearly explains the messages, design choices, and budget | The presentation explains all three and answers a likely question from the water board |
Differentiation
Support
Provide a completed fact sheet and a message-brief template with the three poster purposes already named, so teams focus on design and budget. Give a simplified price sheet with fewer material choices and a worked example of one poster print-run cost.
Extension
Ask teams to add a short digital or social-media piece to the campaign, calculate its cost within the fictional campaign's same $600 budget, and explain how they kept one visual identity across print and screen while adjusting the layout for a small screen.
ELL supports
Provide a bilingual fact card for "service line," "action level," "replacement," and "hierarchy," each with a small image. Allow the message brief and budget notes to be written as short phrases or labeled sketches, and let teams rehearse the presentation with a sentence-frame script.