Lesson plan Grade 11 Art & Music

Ardenmoor Well Hydrographs: A Small-Multiples Design Lesson

Grade 11 students lay out six monitoring-well hydrographs as a small-multiples panel grid, sizing panels and setting one shared depth axis.

Grade: Grade 11
Subject: Art & Music
Material: Lesson plan
Time: 55 min
Prep: Low prep
Materials: Graph paper or 1 cm grid paper, 1 sheet per student, Rulers, Pencils and fine-tip black pens, Printed data table and handout, Index cards, 1 per student

Standards

HSN-Q.A.1 Common Core Math

Use units as a way to understand problems and to guide the solution of multi-step problems; choose and interpret units consistently in formulas; choose and interpret the scale and the origin in graphs and data displays.

How this material aligns: Handout items 3 through 5 have students set one shared depth axis across all six panels and convert readings in feet into centimeters of plotted height, choosing and interpreting the scale and origin of a data display.

All materials for HSN-Q.A.1 →

HSG-MG.A.3 Common Core Math

Apply geometric methods to solve design problems (e.g., designing an object or structure to satisfy physical constraints or minimize cost).

How this material aligns: Handout items 1 and 2 require students to fit six equal panels with stated gutters inside a fixed live area, solving a layout problem under physical size constraints.

All materials for HSG-MG.A.3 →

HSF-IF.B.4 Common Core Math

For a function that models a relationship between two quantities, interpret key features of graphs and tables in terms of the quantities, and sketch graphs showing key features given a verbal description of the relationship.

How this material aligns: Handout items 6 and 7 ask students to read the deepest quarter and the range from one well's four quarterly readings, interpreting key features of the table and of the hydrograph they plot from it in terms of groundwater depth.

All materials for HSF-IF.B.4 →

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This material is in the public domain (CC0) and may be copied, edited, and shared freely, without attribution. Updated 2026-07-23.

Objectives

Students will size six equal chart panels to fit a fixed live area with stated gutters.
Students will set a single shared depth axis and convert readings in feet into plotted centimeters.
Students will explain how per-panel axis scaling distorts comparison across a set of wells.

Vocabulary

Key words: small multiples, hydrograph, gutter, live area, shared axis

Teacher overview

A set of small multiples is a grid of small charts drawn at identical size and scale so that a reader compares them by shape rather than by re-reading each axis. This lesson gives students quarterly depth-to-water readings from six monitoring wells in the fictional Ardenmoor groundwater district and asks them to lay the six hydrographs out as a panel grid on one page. The design decision that carries the most weight is the shared vertical axis, and the misconception worth naming early is that scaling each panel to its own data makes each well easier to read. It does the opposite, because six different scales make six different-looking wells appear equally variable.

Procedure

Hook (5 min): Project or sketch two versions of the same three-panel chart set, one with a shared vertical axis and one where each panel is scaled to its own data. Ask students which version answers the question "which well sits deepest" faster, and record the vote before saying anything about the design.

Direct instruction (12 min): Define small multiples, live area, and gutter. Show how a page's live area is divided: three columns separated by two gutters, two rows separated by one gutter. Work through one panel-width calculation on the board using different numbers than the handout, for example a 20 cm live width with two 1 cm gutters giving 6 cm panels, so that students see the method before they do the arithmetic themselves.

Guided practice (10 min): With the data table in front of them, students mark the shared axis on a single practice panel: a vertical line labeled 0 at the top and 30 feet at the bottom, with tick marks every 5 feet. Circulate and check that the depth axis increases downward, since depth to water is measured down from the ground surface.

Independent practice (20 min): Students complete the ten handout items, then draft their panel grid in pencil on grid paper, drawing at least two of the six hydrographs at the sizes their calculations produced.

Closure and exit ticket (8 min): Students answer one question on an index card: "Name one thing a reader could get wrong if every panel used its own vertical scale." Collect the cards and sort them into two piles, those that name a false comparison and those that do not, to decide whether the next class period needs a reteach.

Ardenmoor Well Hydrographs: A Small-Multiples Design Lesson — Grade 11 Art & Music

Name: ____________________________ Date: ______________

Student Handout

The fictional Ardenmoor groundwater district measures depth to water in six monitoring wells once a quarter. Depth to water is the distance from the ground surface down to the top of the water in the well, reported in feet. A larger number means the water sits deeper.

Well	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4
A	6	9	14	8
B	11	13	18	12
C	19	22	27	21
D	13	15	16	14
E	24	26	29	25
F	20	23	28	22

Your page has a live area 26 cm wide and 14 cm tall. You will place six panels in three columns and two rows. The gutters between columns are 1 cm wide. The gutter between the two rows is 2 cm tall. Use these numbers for every item.

Three equal panels sit across the 26 cm live width with two 1 cm gutters between them. How wide is one panel?
Two equal panels sit down the 14 cm live height with one 2 cm gutter between them. How tall is one panel?
Every panel shares one vertical axis running from 0 feet at the top to 30 feet at the bottom, drawn across the full panel height you found in item 2. How many feet does 1 cm represent?
Using the scale from item 3, how far below the top line of its panel does Well C's Q3 reading of 27 feet plot?
Using the same scale, how far below the top line does Well A's Q1 reading of 6 feet plot?
Look at Well A's four readings. In which quarter is the water deepest, and how many feet deeper is it than in Q1?
Well E's four readings are 24, 26, 29, and 25 feet. What is the range of those readings?
Find the mean of the six Q3 readings, one from each well.
Suppose you scaled each panel to its own well, so Well A's axis ran 0 to 15 feet and Well E's ran 20 to 30 feet. Explain what a reader would get wrong when comparing the six panels.
Explain why the depth axis on this chart increases downward instead of upward.

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

Answer Key

Answer: 8 cm. Two gutters take 2 cm of the 26 cm live width, leaving 24 cm for three panels, and 24 divided by 3 is 8 cm per panel.
Answer: 6 cm. One gutter takes 2 cm of the 14 cm live height, leaving 12 cm for two panels, and 12 divided by 2 is 6 cm per panel.
Answer: 5 feet per cm. The axis covers 30 feet across the 6 cm panel height, and 30 divided by 6 is 5 feet for every centimeter.
Answer: 5.4 cm. Dividing the 27 foot reading by 5 feet per cm gives 5.4 cm below the panel's top line.
Answer: 1.2 cm. Dividing the 6 foot reading by 5 feet per cm gives 1.2 cm below the panel's top line.
Answer: 8 feet. Well A is deepest in Q3 at 14 feet, and 14 minus the Q1 reading of 6 gives 8 feet.
Answer: 5 feet. The largest reading is 29 feet and the smallest is 24 feet, so the range is 29 minus 24, or 5 feet.
Answer: 22 feet. The six Q3 readings are 14, 18, 27, 16, 29, and 28, which sum to 132, and 132 divided by 6 is 22 feet.
Answer: A reader would compare panel shapes as if they showed equal changes. Well A's 8 foot swing would fill the same panel height as Well E's 5 foot swing, so the two wells would look about equally variable even though Well A's water level swings 3 feet more than Well E's.
Answer: The measurement is a depth below ground, so drawing larger numbers lower on the panel keeps the picture matched to the well. A line that falls toward the bottom of the panel then shows water sitting farther below the surface, which is what the reading means.

Differentiation

Support

Give students a page with the panel rectangles already drawn and the shared axis already ticked at 5 foot intervals, so their work is limited to items 3 through 8 and to plotting. Work item 1 aloud with the class before releasing the handout, and provide the six Q3 values on a separate strip for item 8 so no recopying is needed.

Extension

Ask students to redesign the same six panels for a page whose live area is 18 cm wide and 20 cm tall, choosing their own number of columns and rows, stating the gutters they use, and showing the arithmetic that proves the panels fit. They should then write two sentences on how the new proportion changes what a reader notices first.

ELL supports

Pre-teach panel, gutter, axis, and depth to water with a labeled diagram of one empty panel, and post that diagram for the whole period. Allow items 9 and 10 to be answered with an annotated sketch plus a short phrase, and provide sentence frames such as "If each panel used its own scale, a reader would think that ___."

Extensions

Have students add a small annotation layer to the finished grid: one short label on the panel showing the deepest reading and one on the panel with the smallest range, set in a lighter weight than the panel titles so the annotation does not compete with the data. Discuss how annotation moves a chart from a record of readings toward an interpretation of them, and where that becomes a problem for a public agency publishing monitoring data.